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FUNDAMENTALS OF METHODISM 






Fundamentals of 
Methodism 


-ft 0 *' 


U 


By EDWIN D. MOUZON 

One of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Churchy South 


“The distinguishing marks of a Methodist are not his 
opinions of any sort. His assenting to this or that scheme 
of religion, his embracing any particular set of notions, his 
espousing the judgment of one manor of another are all quite 
wide of the point. Whosoever, therefore, imagines that a 
Methodist is a man of such or such an opinion is grossly 
ignorant of the whole affair; he mistakes the truth totally. 
We believe, indeed, that ‘all scripture is given by inspira¬ 
tion of God’; and herein we are distinguished from Jews, 
Turks, and infidels. We believe the written word of God 
to be the only rule both of faith and practice; and herein 
we are fundamentally distinguished from those of the Rom¬ 
ish Church. We believe Christ to be the eternal, the su¬ 
preme God; and herein we are distinguished from the 
Socinians and Arians. But as to all opinions which do not 
strike at the root of Christianity, we think and let think. 
So that, whatsoever they are, whether right or wrong, they 
are no distinguishing marks of a Methodist .”—John Wes¬ 
ley, in “The Character of a Methodist.” 



LAMAR & BARTON, AGENTS 

PUBLISHING HOUSE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH 
NASHVILLE, TENN; DALLAS, TEX; RICHMOND, VA. 

1923 


S3 I 

, fA (b 


COPYRIGHT, 1923 
BY 

LAMAR & BARTON 


1 

\ « 


uO'J 


\ 5 


©C1A759848 


To 

All Who Are Interested in Keeping Alive in the World 
That Spiritual Interpretation of Christianity Which 
God Gave through John Wesley , 

This Book Is Dedicated. 





INTRODUCTION 


During the summer of the present year I passed through 
the Church press a series of articles on the Fundamentals 
of Methodism. It soon became evident that these articles 
were both too long and too short. They were too long for 
the average Church paper and in some instances had to 
be printed piecemeal, thus destroying their unity and 
leading to some misapprehension as to their purpose. 
They were also too short for an adequate discussion of the 
facts and principles which they sought to set forth and 
explain. In more than one case I found myself under the 
necessity of leaving out matter which should have been 
presented in order to keep to the front teachings of im¬ 
portance in any well-balanced presentation of Methodist 
Fundamentals. But even with such handicaps as these, 
there is reason to believe that the publication of my ex¬ 
position of Methodism has accomplished good. In 
response, therefore, to many requests which have come 
from all parts of the Church, I have gathered these articles 
together and have considerably enlarged them. It will 
be seen that the discussion of the Fundamental Belief of 
Methodism takes a much wider range. This, because of 
its brevity and its lack of balance, was to the writer the 
least satisfactory of all the articles as originally printed. 

I am seeking to make plain to laymen as well as to 
preachers just what the Fundamentals of Methodism are. 
These are presented in this book in three chapters: 

I. Fundamental Belief. 

II. Fundamental Practice. 

III. Fundamental Experience. 

I am also printing in the “Addenda” Methodism’s 
three great historic documents, the Apostles’ Creed, the 
Twenty-Five Articles of Religion, and the General Rules 
of the United Societies. The reader will thus be under no 

(7) 


8 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


necessity of referring to his Discipline to find these 
documents, but will have them before him for immediate 
reference and study. 

For the sake of emphasis the discussion of the Funda¬ 
mental Experience, out of which Methodism came, is 
presented last. But it should never be forgotten that 
without that Experience of Personal Salvation there 
would never have been any Methodist Church in the 
world. As in the history covered by the New Testament, 
so in the genesis and growth of Methodism, the true order 
is: First, experience and a holy life , and then Christian 
doctrine. Doctrine grows out of experience and life. 
Men are not first theologians and then Christians. They 
are first Christians, and after that they begin to meditate 
on the significance of the things which they have felt and 
seen. The great truths of religion are not, first of all, truths 
of the head and afterwards truths of the heart. First of 
all, they are truths of experience, and later they be¬ 
come truths of the intellect. The failure to see and under¬ 
stand this leads to vast misunderstanding. It is the pe¬ 
culiar glory of Methodism that we have seen and pro¬ 
claimed this gospel of Christian experience from the 
days of John Wesley until now. If Methodism is to 
remain true to type, we must continue to lay stress where 
Wesley and his associates put their emphasis—namely, on 
Christian experience and holy living. 

It should go without saying that the writer of the 
following pages is not a “ Fundamentalist.” Neither is 
he a “Liberal” in the sense in which that word has come 
to be used. I agree fully with Horace Bushnell that 
“Liberality loosens the terms of truth; permitting easily 
and with careless magnanimity variations from it, con¬ 
senting to overlook and allow them, and subsiding thus 
erelong into a licentious indifference to all truth and a 
general defect of responsibility in regard to it.” No, 
the writer is neither a “Fundamentalist” nor a “Lib- 


Introduction 


9 


eral.” He is a Methodist. Born in a Methodist home, 
the son and grandson of Methodists on both sides of his 
family, converted during a Methodist revival, trained in 
a Methodist school, and having spent a large part of his 
life in the study of Methodist history and Methodist 
doctrine, he claims to know what Methodism is. 

The author rejoices in the fact that he is a member 
of the Methodist Church. He would, therefore, make his 
own the wise words of one of England’s greatest theologians: 
“The Christian theologian does not speak as a free lance; he 
is a member of a religious community and is under obli¬ 
gation to maintain as far as possible its continuity of 
faith, its spiritual identity. While the questions of the 
young must be answered and their doubts met, the ex¬ 
perience of the aged must not be disregarded nor their 
hearts wounded by wanton denials of what they hold most 
dear. The theologian is an intellectual mediator between 
God and man, and as he is responsible to God not to 
misinterpret his truth, he is responsible to men to give 
regard to the needs of their souls.” (Garvie.) 

Because it gives as comprehensive.a summary of Meth¬ 
odist theology as can be found anywhere within equal 
compass and, because it says to our Methodist people 
exactly what this series of addresses is intended to say, I 
quote the following eloquent passage from a sermon by 
Dr. R. W. Dale on “The Theology of John Wesley”: 

“You are the heirs of great traditions. You stand in a 
noble succession. But 

“ ‘They who on glorious ancestry enlarge. 

Produce their debt instead of their discharge.* 

Keep faith with your fathers; keep faith with Christ; 
keep faith with your children and your children's children; 
transmit to coming generations the gospel which has al¬ 
ready won such splendid triumphs. It is a great gospel 
which you and your fathers have preached during the 


10 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


hundred and fifty years of your history, a gospel which 
declares the love of God for all men. Preach it still with 
the same confidence of faith and the same passion of joy. 
Tell men that while they inherit by their birth the infirmi¬ 
ties and sins of the race, they inherit also by their birth 
the salvation which Christ has achieved for all mankind. 
Tell them that they live, not in a lost world, but in a re¬ 
deemed world; a world lost by its revolt against God and 
its alienation from the life of God, but redeemed in the 
blood of Christ and with powers in Christ and in the 
Spirit of Christ which render all righteousness possible. 
Tell men—all men—that they were created in Christ, and 
that when they discover and accept their true relation to 
him they will live under new heavens and on a new earth 
and will know the greatness of the sons of God. Tell 
them that they are blessed with every spiritual blessing in 
Christ; and that God chose them in him before the founda¬ 
tion of the world that they should be holy and without 
blemish before him in love; charge them not to defeat the 
purposes of the divine grace; but to work out their own 
salvation with fear and trembling, and so to make their 
calling and election sure. See to it that through God’s 
grace you know for yourselves that, through the merits 
of Christ, your sins are forgiven, and that you are indeed 
and of a truth the children of God; that your testimony 
to the Christian redemption may not rest on tradition 
but on your own personal experience. ... I call upon 
you to resolve, with all the solemnity of an oath, that you 
will stand fast until you die in your fidelity to the truths 
which have given to Methodism its power and its glory; 
and that henceforth you will pray with a deeper earnest¬ 
ness and a firmer faith that the fires of Methodism may 
never be extinguished.” 

Nashville, Tenn., August 21, 1923. 


CONTENTS 

» 

I 

Fundamental Belief. 15 

II 

Fundamental Practice. 41 

III 

Fundamental Experience. 59 

IV 

Addenda . 75 














I 

FUNDAMENTAL BELIEF 

The Apostles* Creed and the Twenty-Five Articles 

of Religion 











! 

FUNDAMENTAL BELIEF 

In certain quarters so much is being said nowadays 
about “fundamentals” that it seems necessary for some 
one to call our Methodist people away from emphasis 
upon things contrary to the spirit and genius of Meth¬ 
odism to an understanding of what the fundamentals of 
Methodism really are. For it would be nothing short of 
disastrous, indeed it would be to turn the clock of spirit¬ 
ual progress back nearly two hundred years and undo 
the work of the great Wesleyan revival if certain alien 
principles now being clamorously proclaimed should gain 
the ascendency and be mistaken for the sum and sub¬ 
stance of Methodism. 

As showing our Methodist emphasis, I set down here 
certain words from the pen of John Wesley: 

There may be some well-meaning persons who aver that if they 
have not clear views of those capital doctrines—the fall of man, 
justification by faith, and the atonement made by the death of 
Christ and his righteousness transferred to them—they can have 
no benefit from his death. I dare in no wise affirm this. Indeed, I 
do not believe it. I believe the merciful God regards the lives of 
men more than their ideas. I believe he respects the goodness of 
the heart rather than the clearness of the head; and that if the heart 
of man be filled (by the grace of God and the power of his Spirit) 
with the humble, gentle, patient love of God and man, God will 
not cast him into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his 
angels, because his ideas are not clear or his conceptions are confused. 

And if this is not plain enough, take another quotation 
from Wesley: 

We do not lay the main stress of our religion on any opinions, 
right or wrong; neither do we begin, nor willingly join in, any 

(is) 


16 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


dispute concerning them. The weight of all religion rests on holi¬ 
ness of heart and life. 

Now it is one thing to be charitable in reference to the¬ 
ological opinions, and it is another and a different thing 
to be lax . Laxness grows out of indifference or ignorance; 
charity shows depth of soul and springs from a genuine 
experience of vital godliness. Wesley had opinions of his 
own; there was nothing nebulous and uncertain about his 
theological beliefs. Everybody knew where he stood on 
all the great truths of the Christian faith. But Wesley 
had had a transforming experience of the grace of God, 
and he knew that this was the one thing to be sought 
above all else. Before his “conversion” he had been 
thoroughly orthodox, just as orthodox as he was after his 
conversion, but his orthodoxy did not save him. What made 
a new man of Wesley was the experience he had in Alders- 
gate Street, at that memorable prayer meeting, when he 
“felt his heart strangely warmed.” Wesley knew what 
was of first importance to him; and what was of first 
importance to him he believed to be of first importance 
to all men. And this is precisely why we Methodists have 
always allowed others large liberty of thinking. With 
us regeneration and a Christlike life are the things that 
really matter. 

But this does not mean that we Methodists do not hold 
strongly to very definite views touching Christian belief and 
Christian life. We agree fully with Wesley when, in his 
sermon on “The Catholic Spirit,” he says: 

A man of a truly catholic spirit has not now his religion to seek. 
He is fixed as the sun in his judgment concerning the main branches 
of Christian doctrine He does not halt between two opinions nor 
vainly endeavor to blend them into one. Observe this: You know 
not what a spirit you are of; who call yourselves men of a catholic 
spirit, only because you are of a muddy understanding; because 
your mind is all in a mist; because you have no settled, constant 
principles, but are for jumbling all opinion together. Be convinced 
that you have quite missed your way; you know not where you are. 


Fundamental Belief 


17 


You think you are got into the very spirit of Christ, when, in truth, 
you are nearer the spirit of Antichrist. Go first and learn the 
elements of the gospel of Christ, and then shall you learn to be of a 
truly catholic spirit. 

There are certain very important Methodist fundamen¬ 
tals—fundamentals of Belief , of Practice, and of Experi¬ 
ence; and touching these I purpose saying some things in 
language which all can understand. 

In a word, then, Methodism comes to the world with 
three great documents in her hand and with a glorious ex¬ 
perience in her heart. It would be more logical, and more 
in keeping with the genesis of Methodism, if I should 
speak first of this glorious experience. But for the sake of 
emphasis I shall leave this till I have spoken of the three 
great documents which Methodism holds in her possession. 

These documents are the Apostles ’ Creed, the Twenty- 
Five Articles of Religion, and the General Rules of the 
United Societies. The Apostles' Creed shows our connection 
with the Church of the early centuries; the Twenty-Five 
Articles of Religion show our connection with the great 
Protestant Reformation in England; while the General 
Rules, which came from the hand of Wesley himself, 
keep ever before us the type of piety which is the standard 
and ideal for all who seek to live the life of the people 
called Methodists. To repeat, here are the Fundamentals 
of Methodism: The Apostles’ Creed, the Twenty-Five 
Articles, the General Rules, and a Gracious Experience of 
Personal Salvation. I shall discuss these fundamentals 
briefly in the order given. I confine myself in the present 
chapter to the consideration of the first two documents, the 
Apostles’ Creed and the Twenty-Five Articles, reserving 
for later discussion the General Rules and the Gracious 
Experience of Religion out of which came the Methodist 
presentation of the essential doctrines of Christian ex¬ 
perience, a complement of doctrines distinctive of Meth¬ 
odism and peculiarly our own. 

a 


18 Fundamentals of Methodism 

I 

The Apostles' Creed 

As it stands in our Book of Discipline this historic 
creed reads as follows: 

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and 
earth; and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived 
by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pon¬ 
tius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day he rose 
again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the 
right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come 
to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; 
the holy catholic Church; 1 the communion of saints; the forgiveness 
of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen. 

This brief and simple statement of the fundamental 
facts and doctrines of the Christian religion is an inherit¬ 
ance from the early centuries of the Christian Church. 
It was of gradual growth and traces far back into the 
earliest period of Christian history. With us Meth¬ 
odists, it is used as a baptismal confession of faith and is 
recited every Sunday as the united confession of the 
faith of the worshiping congregation. This is the one and 
only creed which we require for admission into our com - 
munion . In this we are in perfect harmony with the 
early Church. This apostolic confession we do require, 
but we require nothing more whatsoever in the way of 
creed from those who seek our fellowship in working 
out their salvation. Thus Methodism builds where the 
apostolic Church built. One may hold any view what¬ 
soever touching historical, scientific, and literary mat¬ 
ters, which does not contradict or deny the facts and 
doctrines herein set forth, and be a true Methodist. 


*A Church broad enough to embrace all who worship and serve 
Jesus Christ and preaching a gospel large enough to meet all the 
spiritual needs of all men. 



Fundamental Belief 


19 


Furthermore, one may hold to doctrines not in harmony 
with the scheme of Wesleyan Arminian theology preached 
by Methodism and still be a member of the Methodist 
Church. For we steadfastly hold with John Wesley that 
“we have no more right to object to a man for holding 
a different opinion from our own than we have to ob¬ 
ject to his wearing a wig while we wear our own hair.” 
But as Wesley said, “when he takes off his wig and begins 
to shake the powder about my eyes, then I do have a right 
to object.” 

I rejoice that we of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, in particular, are true to the early apostolic tradi¬ 
tion and to early Methodist practice in requiring for 
Church membership the historic creed of Christen¬ 
dom and no further creed. It should be clearly un¬ 
derstood that we do not require those who seek to be¬ 
come members of our Church to subscribe to all the 
Twenty-Five Articles of Religion. For evidently that 
would shut most people out of the Church entirely. What 
I mean to say is this: The language of some of the Twenty- 
Five Articles is highly metaphysical and theological, and 
the majority of people are not theologians and metaphysi¬ 
cians. To require our children to affirm that they believe 
them would be to make belief mean nothing having any 
relation to the understanding and the life; and to call 
upon the busy man from the farm and the office and the 
store to affirm his belief in difficult theological terminol¬ 
ogy would be to shut out a very large number of honest 
and useful Christian men. Not a complicated theology, 
but simple faith in Christ makes a man a Christian. 

It would be a tragedy to see our Methodism, with her 
glorious record of catholicity, tied up in a theological strait- 
jacket. But even so, Methodism could not long be held in 
bondage; for when once more the power of the Spirit 
came upon her, she would break her bonds and assert her 
God-given freedom. 


20 Fundamentals of Methodism 

II 

The Twenty-Five Articles of Religion 

The Twenty-five Articles of Religion are one of the 
doctrinal standards of Methodism. According to the 
general scheme of religion as set forth in this historic 
document, all Methodist preachers are under solemn 
obligation to teach and preach. These Articles constitute 
one of the most important and significant “fundamentals” 
of Methodism. And, as has already been suggested, 
these Articles of Religion show our connection with the 
great Protestant Reformation, especially in England. 
It should be remembered that not only did the Articles 
of Religion come out of the Protestant Reformation in 
England, the Liturgy of the Church was also the product 
of that great movement. It is Cranmer’s voice that 
sounds still in those stately sentences. Doctrine is to be 
found, therefore, in the Ritual of the Church as well as in 
the Articles of Religion; and in several instances the 
statement of faith contained in the Articles is supple¬ 
mented or completed in the more elaborate Ritual. 
Moreover, it is certain that the doctrinal parts of our 
Ritual are protected by the “Restrictive Rule” which 
prohibits the General Conference from revoking, altering, 
or changing our Articles of Religion, or establishing any 
new standards or rule of doctrine “contrary to our present 
existing and established standards of doctrine.” And this 
is as it should be. For with certain men on the one hand, 
who pride themselves on a “liberality” which, to use 
Bushnell’s language, “loosens the terms of truth, permit¬ 
ting easily and with careless magnanimity variations from 
it”; and with certain men, on the other hand, who are in 
bondage to literalism and who would turn us back to a 
crude and outworn theology which we discarded at the 
very beginning of our history, Methodism is fortunate in 
finding herself in such a sound and Scriptural position. 


Fundamental Belief 


21 


The shifting tides of superficial thought will not easily 
shake her from her foundation, and the clamorous de¬ 
mands of modern creed makers will not soon be able to 
set up and establish any “new standards or rules of 
doctrine.” 

Methodism brought forward and completed the Eng¬ 
lish Protestant Reformation. One always has the feeling 
that the Church of England stopped halfway between 
Roman Catholicism and Protestantism in spite of the 
fact that she began so nobly with the statement of evan¬ 
gelical faith in her Edwardine and Elizabethan Articles 
and in her unequalled Liturgy. The beginning of the 
Methodist Revival was under the leadership of clergy¬ 
men of the Church of England and laymen whose early 
lives had been spent under the influence of that great 
Church. When the Methodist Episcopal Church in 
America was organized at the Christmas Conference in 
Baltimore in 1784, John Wesley, Thomas Coke, Francis 
Asbury, and the others did not suppose that there 
would ever be organized in America another and a second 
Protestant Episcopal Church. For it needs to be remem¬ 
bered that the Protestant Episcopal Church was not 
organized until something more than two years later 
and by special act of the English Parliament. Mean¬ 
time the Methodist Episcopal Church, which had served 
itself heir to the noble Protestant inheritance of the 
Church of England and the priceless spiritual riches 
which came from God through Wesley and those as¬ 
sociated with him, had entered upon its glorious 
career as the great Episcopal Church of America. These 
facts need to be stated and to be understood. For in 
the light of our historic connection with the Reformation 
in England must the Twenty-Five Articles be read and 
interpreted. 

The Twenty-Five Articles, then, are taken from the 
Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. When 


22 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


Wesley sent over Thomas Coke with authority to organize 
the American Methodists into a Church, he placed in his 
hands for the Methodists of America these Articles as 
we now have them, with the exception, of course, of the 
Twenty-Third. 2 He had left out certain Articles and had 
altered certain others, thus reducing the number. He 
also made certain changes in the Liturgy of the Church 
of England and recommended its use as “ breathing a 
solid, Scriptural, and rational piety.” This Liturgy forms 
the basis of our present Ritual. 

The purpose of this book, which is only an introductory 
study, does not allow a discussion of each of the Twenty- 
Five Articles of Religion. (Dr. Thomas O. Summers 
devoted two stout volumes to that great task.) All that 
is here proposed is a very brief mention of certain impor¬ 
tant facts and essential doctrines which call for attention 
in any survey of the Fundamental Belief of Methodism. 

1. The first thing to be mentioned is the fact that we 
have here the Protestant view of the Holy Scriptures as dis¬ 
tinguished from the Roman Catholic. 

It will be observed that we have two Articles on the 
Bible, Article V, “Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures 
for Salvation,” and Article VI, “Of the Old Testament.” 
Concerning the Old Testament two important things are 
said: (1) “The Old Testament is not contrary to the New; 
for in both everlasting life is offered to mankind by 
Christ.” To discount and to neglect the Old Testament 
is to suffer great spiritual loss. The Old Testament con¬ 
tains a true revelation from God. It is not yet a full 
revelation; for “God of old time spake unto the fathers * 
in many parts and in many manners,” there being im¬ 
perfection as well as variety in the earlier revelation. 
But the Old Testament looks forward to Christ and pre¬ 
pares the way for the New Testament. The two taken 


2 This is an article on “the Rulers of the United States of America.” 




Fundamental Belief 23 

together make one Bible. (2) The other thing of im¬ 
portance is this: In the Old Testament there are “cere¬ 
monies and rites” which do not bind Christians; “not¬ 
withstanding no Christian whatsoever is free from the 
obedience to the commandments which are called moral.” 
That is to say , it is the moral and spiritual message of the 
Old Testament which has significance and eternal worth. 
And the Old Testament must be read in the light of the 
New. 

The Protestant view of the Bible is made perfectly 
plain in the following language: “Holy Scripture con- 
taineth all things necessary to salvation; so that what¬ 
soever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is 
not to be required of any man, that it should be believed 
as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary 
to salvation.” This sweeps aside the claim of any Church 
to say to the . individual Christian exactly what he must 
believe , and it denies to tradition any value unless it is in 
harmony with the plain sense of Scripture. The language 
used in this Article, “Holy Scripture containeth all things 
necessary to salvation ,” is, in another particular, set over 
against the Roman Catholic view of the Bible. “The 
Reformers drew a distinction between the word of God 
and the Scripture which contains or presents that word. 
If the use of the metaphor be allowed, the word of God is 
to the Scripture as the soul is to the body.” When we say 
that the Bible is the word of God, it “must be clearly 
understood that the copula is does not express logical 
identity, but some such relation as can be more exactly 
rendered by contains , presents } conveys , records —all of 
which phrases are used in the writings of the Reformers 
or in the creeds of the Reformation Churches. The main 
thing to remember is that the distinction is not to be made 
use of to deny to the substance of Scripture those attri¬ 
butes of authority and infallibility which belong to the 
word of God.” Let it be noted in passing that not one 


24 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


word is said in our Articles on the Bible about the ‘ 1 verbal 
dictation” theory of inspiration. 

We need to keep in mind the essential difference between 
the Roman Catholic and the Protestant conception of 
the Holy Scriptures. According to Roman Catholicism 
“the Bible was a sort of spiritual law book, a storehouse 
of divinely communicated knowledge, of doctrinal truths, 
and rules for moral conduct and nothing more.” The 
Roman Catholic theologians were utterly lacking in the 
historical sense. To them one part of the Bible was of as 
much value as another, if they could only find out what 
that part of the Bible meant. So in order to make the 
Bible mean what they wanted it to mean, the Church of 
Rome resorted to its fourfold sense: literal, moral, alle¬ 
gorical, and a?iagogic . So as no layman could possibly un¬ 
derstand such a Bible, the Church of Rome took the Bible 
out of his hands and declared that he had no right to try 
to understand it. Rome alone could tell him what it meant. 

Now, how far is all this removed from the true position 
of Protestant Christianity! “It is the unanimous decla¬ 
ration of the Reformers that Scripture is Scripture be¬ 
cause it gives us that knowledge of God and of his will 
which is necessary for salvation; because it presents to 
the eye of faith God himself personally manifesting him¬ 
self in Christ. It is this presentation of God himself and 
of his will for our salvation which is infallible and authori¬ 
tative. But this manifestation of God himself is something 
spiritual, and is to be apprehended by the spiritual faculty 
which is faith; and the Reformers and the Confessions of 
the Reformation do not recognize any infallibility or 
divine authority which is otherwise apprehended than by 
faith. With the mediaeval theologian infallibility was 
something which guaranteed the perfect correctness of 
abstract propositions; with some modern Protestants 
it consists in the conception that the record contains 
not even the smallest error in word or description of fact— 


Fundamental Belief 


25 


in its inerrancy. But neither inerrancy nor the correct¬ 
ness of abstract propositions is apprehended by faith in 
the Reformers’ sense of that word; they are matters of 
fact, to be accepted or rejected by the ordinary faculties 
of man. The infallibility and authority which need faith 
to perceive them are, and must be, something very differ¬ 
ent; they produce the conviction that in the manifestation 
of God in his word there lies infallible power to save.” 
(For an adequate discussion of this important subject 
the reader is referred to Lindsay’s “History of the Refor¬ 
mation,” Volume I, pp. 455-467, from which the above 
quotations are taken. Lindsay’s monumental work is, by 
appointment of our College of Bishops, in the course of 
study for the proper instruction of our young preachers.) 

In concluding this short discussion of our belief con¬ 
cerning the Bible, mention must be made of the way in 
which Wesley himself speaks of the authority of the written 
word of God. In the concluding paragraph of the General 
Rules, he says that “the written word of God is the only 
rule and the sufficient rule both of our faith and practice .” 
This is our faith. In this we rest. 

2. Our Protestant doctrine touching the sacraments of the 
Church is set forth in contrast with the Roman Catholic view. 
(See Articles XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, and XX.) 

In addition to such institutions as Christ had ordained 
to be means of grace for our salvation, Rome had added 
many others. Thus Rome stood with her doctrine that 
grace, with its saving power, flows down through her 
sacraments of baptism , confirmation , matrimony , penance , 
the eucharist } and extreme unction. Thus through baptism 
came salvation; through confirmation the Holy Ghost was 
given; through the sacrament of matrimony marriage was 
cleansed from the sin of lust; by penance sins were forgiven; 
in the eucharist the soul was fed; in extreme unction } all 
sin was cleansed away and the soul made fit for heaven. 
“These ceremonies were not signs and promises of the 


26 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


free grace of God, under whose wide canopy, as under that 
of heaven, man lived his spiritual life. They were jeal¬ 
ously guarded doors from out of which grudgingly, and 
commonly not without fees, the priests dispensed the 
free grace of God.” “Thus everywhere the priesthood 
barred, or was supposed to bar, the way to God.” (Lindsay.) 

All this Protestantism brushed aside. For when Martin 
Luther went directly to God in Christ, the whole Roman 
system collapsed. When there sounded in his soul the 
word of God, “The just shall live by faith,” then New Tes¬ 
tament Christianity was reborn. The experience which 
Luther had, John Wesley also had. The Protestant 
experience of salvation through faith and faith alone, 
came to another and fuller expression during the Wesleyan 
Revival. This is the great glad gospel of Jesus Christ 
which Methodism sounds out to all the world, the fact that 
every man may come directly to Christ for salvation, the 
proclamation of the priesthood of all believers. And 
when one has come to Christ and found salvation in him 
alone he is filled with a sense of certainty which enables 
him to sing with the great Reformer: 

“Though the whole world with devils swarmed, 

And threatened us to swallow, 

We will not fear, for we are armed 
And victory will follow." 

More than half of all our Articles of Religion, it should be 
observed, are in protest against the errors of Roman Cath¬ 
olicism. They were written when the fight with Rome was 
at its height, and they were written by Cranmer, who, it will 
be remembered, was burned at the stake because of his 
Protestant faith. Our Methodist Articles are Protestant 
Articles. Methodism roots back into the Reformation. 
We are in this holy apostolic succession. 

3. In a very important particular our Methodist Articles 
of Religion differ from the Articles of the Church of England . 


Fundamental Belief 


27 


Wesley , after the study of a lifetime , carefully omitted 
such Articles and such parts of Articles as were Calvinistic. 

For instance, he left out entirely Article XVII, which 
teaches the doctrine of ''Predestination and Election.” 
He left out also Article XIII, in which it is declared that 
good works done before justification "are not pleasant to 
God,’ ’ but' ‘ have the nature of sin. ” And to take one other 
illustration, from the Article on "Original or Birth Sin” 
he cut away fully half in his effort to get the Calvinism 
out of it, in particular leaving out that part which de¬ 
clares that "in every person born into this world, it 
[original sin] deserveth God’s wrath and condemnation.” 
Calvinism is something more than the doctrine of election 
and predestination. Its conception of God, its view of 
the utter wickedness of human nature, its theory of the 
Atonement, its doctrine of imputed righteousness, its 
denial of man’s free moral agency, as well as its teaching 
concerning election and predestination—are all parts of 
one systematic and logical whole. Wesley parted 
company with the entire system. Wesleyan Arminian 
theology and Calvinism are at the opposite poles of 
theological thought. They cannot be made to agree the 
one with the other. 

One may, indeed, remain a Calvinist in his thinking and 
be a true and loyal member of the Methodist Church. 
For Methodism has no theological requirements for 
Church membership. Methodism invites and welcomes 
all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. But our 
Articles of Religion are a functional requirement of those 
who enter our ministry; and Methodism cannot toler¬ 
ate the teaching and preaching of doctrines which are defin¬ 
itely Calvinistic , no matter what form those doctrines may 
take. 

4. In any statement of faith which is truly Christian , the 
central and supreme place must he given to Jesus Christ. 
Article II, "Of the Word, or Son of God, who was made 


28 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


very Man,” Article III, “Of the Resurrection of Christ,” 
and Article XX, “Of the One Oblation of Christ, finished 
upon the Cross”—these present the historic Christian 
belief concerning the Incarnation , the Atoning Death , and 
the Resurrection of our Lord. 

(1) The Incarnation of God in Christ is a fact. With¬ 
out the Incarnation there would be no Christian Church 
in the world to-day. Indeed, God was so perfectly 
manifested in Christ that it is forever impossible to think 
of God without thinking in terms of Jesus. The “virgin 
birth” is the method by which the fact of the Incarnation 
was realized. The birth of Christ took place in a miracu¬ 
lous way, but his “virgin life”—“holy, harmless, unde¬ 
filed, and separate from sinners”—is a greater miracle 
than his “virgin birth,” as the spiritual is higher than the 
physical. It is a plain fact of history that God did reveal 
himself fully in Jesus Christ. In him we find God and 
God finds us. 

“And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds 
In loveliness of perfect deeds, 

More strong than all poetic thought.” 

(2) The Atoning Death of Christ has always been the 
central theme of Christian preaching. The Cross of 
Christ is the very heart of the gospel. Everything comes 
to a focus in the cross. All that Jesus is, in his life and in 
his ministry, converges in this one burning point. Here 
Christ shows the hatefulness of sin and forever judges 
and condemns it; here he reveals the love of the Father 
and crowns the great principle of vicarious suffering 
which runs through life from the tiniest protoplasmic cell 
all the way up to the high and holy God. It will be 
observed, however, that Methodism has no theory of the 
Atonement. Throughout the Christian centuries there 
have been many attempts to formulate a complete ex- 


Fundamental Belief 


29 


planation of the mystery of the Death of Christ for the 
sins of the whole world. None of these attempts have 
been wholly satisfactory; each glimpses the mighty event 
from its own angle. It is, therefore, a mistake to take any 
one of the theories now current—whether the Penal 
Substitution Theory , the Governmental Theory , or the 
Moral Influence Theory —and identify that theory with 
the fact. Methodism proclaims the great redeeming fact 
and gives it the central place in her gospel, leaving devout 
students of theology free to interpret the work of the 
Redeemer as they may, provided always that they do so 
in harmony with the language of the New Testament 
and in keeping with the facts of Christian experience; 
and, provided also, that they do not break with that 
interpretation of the Atonement which has been the 
consistent doctrine of the Church from the earliest 
centuries—namely, that the Death of Christ has a God- 
ward aspect as well as a manward. To do this an ade¬ 
quate theory must show that the Death of Christ not 
only influences man, but satisfies God—satisfies both 
his holiness and his love. 

One great truth concerning the Atonement Methodism 
has done more than any other denomination to make 
plain and to sound out in all the corners of the world— 
namely, the fact that Christ died for all men. Our Article 
XX declares that “the offering of Christ once made is 
that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction 
for all the sins of the whole world, both original and 
actual.” And our Ritual for the administration of the 
Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper teaches that God the 
Father, of his tender mercy, did give his only Son Jesus 
Christ “to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption; 
who made there (by his oblation of himself once offered) 
a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satis¬ 
faction for the sins of the whole world.” 

Thus the cross of Christ stands in the midst of human 


30 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


history—high as the holiness and love of God, deep as the 
sin and sorrow of man, and reaching out its arms to all 
' the world! 

(3) The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is 
a twofold fact, a fact of history and a fact of experience. 
The empty grave, the recovered and triumphant faith of 
the disciples, and the existence of the Christian Church—all 
proclaim it to be a fact of history. The wonderful record 
of faith and life contained in the New Testament bears 
witness that the Resurrection of Christ was a glorious 
fact of experience to the early disciples; and the power of 
Christianity in the world to-day and the inner witness of 
the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers bear present and 
living testimony that the Christ who lived and died is alive 
forevermore. Nothing in history and experience is more 
certain than this. 

5. The place and purpose of the Church must receive at¬ 
tention if our interpretation of Christianity and our witness 
to its power are to he understood and appreciated. 

Article XIII, "Of the Church,” is as follows: 

The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, 
in which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments 
duly administered according to Christ’s ordinance, in all things that 
are requisite to the same. 

This statement is completed in the Ritual for the Recep¬ 
tion and Recognition of Members. The minister thus 
addresses the congregation, after having brought forward 
the candidates: 

Brethren, the Church is of God, and will be preserved to the end 
of time, for the promotion of his worship and the due administration 
of his word and ordinances—the maintenance of Christian fellowship 
and discipline—the edification of believers, and the conversion of 
the world. 

The Church is no transient organization. It was es¬ 
tablished by Christ for “the conversion of the world” 


Fundamental Belief 


31 


The program of the Church, then, is something other than 
41 the accomplishment of God’s elect”; it is rather 11 the 
conversion of the world .” Christ’s command is: “Go ye 
therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them 
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 
have commanded you.” And his promise concerning his 
Church is: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” 
Therefore, in obedience to the Divine command and 
encouraged by the Divine promise, the Church addresses 
herself to her great program of educational, evangelistic, 
missionary, and social service. Well does Dr. Charles E. 
Jefferson say in his Yale Lectures: “The Church is an 
essential constituent of the Christian religion. The prin¬ 
ciples of Jesus do not enthrone themselves in human 
society without the assistance of the Church. The Church 
is in literal truth the body of Christ. Without it he does 
no mighty deeds. The amount of work he accomplishes 
in every country is conditioned upon the character of 
the Church in that country. The kind of service he 
performs in any community is determined by the char¬ 
acter of the Christian society in that community. Wher¬ 
ever the Church prospers, society improves. Wherever 
the Church languishes, society degenerates. When the 
Church is vigorous, the social atmosphere becomes brac¬ 
ing and clear; when the Church becomes worldly and cor¬ 
rupt, the sun is turned into darkness and the moon into 
blood. There is no hope for the triumph of Christian 
religion outside the Church.” 

6. Another thing needs to be said: The end toward which 
the Church labors , the purpose for which our Lord came into 
the worldy will be finally and fully accomplished when Christ 
comes again. 

Our doctrine touching this matter finds statement in 
three different places in the Book of Discipline. In the 
Apostles’ Creed it is said that Christ “ascended into heav- 


32 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


en, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; 
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” 
In Article III the statement is a little fuller: “He as¬ 
cended into heaven, and there sitteth until he return to 
judge all men at the last day.” And in our solemn 
Ritual for the Burial of the Dead, we read: “Forasmuch 
as the spirit of our deceased brother hath returned unto 
God who gave it, we therefore commit his body to the 
ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; 
looking for the general resurrection in the last day, and 
the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ; at whose second coming in glorious majesty to 
judge the world, the earth and the sea shall give up their 
dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in 
him shall be changed, and made like unto his own glo¬ 
rious body, according to the mighty working whereby he 
is able to subdue all things unto himself.” 

From these declarations it is clear that we hold: (1) 
that Christ shall come again, (2) that he shall come to 
judge both the quick and the dead, and (3) that he shall 
return to judge all men at the last day. 

It is manifest at once that any premillenarian view of 
the Second Coming of Christ which teaches that the 
world must of necessity grow worse and worse, and that 
Christ is to come the second time to inaugurate a new 
method of converting men in which display of power and 
exercise of force shall accomplish what the preaching of 
the gospel and the silent influence of the Holy Spirit are 
powerless to do, cannot possibly be harmonized with our 
Methodist teaching concerning this great event. 

Christ shall come again. This has been the hope of the 
Church throughout all the centuries. But this truth must 
not be so stated as, in effect, to teach the doctrine of an 
absentee Christ. Christ is not absent, but present. He 
is now at work in the world. His promise is: “Lo, I am 
with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” The 


Fundametal Belief 


33 


significance of Pentecost is that then and there the 
disciples came to realize that Christ had come again and 
would never go away. And at notable epochs in history 
Christ has manifested himself in a special and powerful 
manner—as during the Protestant Reformation and dur¬ 
ing the Wesleyan Revival. The New Testament looks 
forward, however, to a final consummation when he shall 
come with great power and glory. This is the supreme 
goal of human history. “Moreover,” as Dr. R. H. 
Mackintosh has said, “apart from such denouement the 
course of human history as a whole is devoid of ultimate 
value. It is not too much to say that the world owes the 
sense of history to religious belief in eschatology.” The 
Greeks had no conception of history moving forward to a 
definite and final consummation. With Christians, “the 
complete and universal triumph of Christ is as sure as his 
triumph over death. In the New Testament Resurrection 
and Return may almost be called two sides of one fact. 
The world thinks that Jesus has been disposed of; the 
Church knows that because he has risen, all will yet be 
conhonted with him. The Christian prospect is not 
exhausted in the going of believers to where he is, singly 
and gradually—a piecemeal draining of life into the next 
world. There will be a final manifestation of his su¬ 
premacy in a mode recognizable by all and exhibiting the 
last issues of the divine redemptive rule of all things in 
heaven and earth.” 

“He comes again: O Zion, ere thou meet him, 

Make known to every heart his saving grace; 

Let none whom he hath ransomed fail to greet him, 
Through thy neglect, unfit to see his face.” 

Our Twenty-Five Articles of Religion are both definitely 
Protestant and distinctly Wesleyan. To us, therefore, 
they have a value both doctrinal and historical. As first 
prepared by Cranmer and those associated with him, they 
were written when it was necessary for men to state their 
3 


34 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


faith. It could not be avoided. And as amended and 
abbreviated by Wesley, they took their present form at a 
time when elimination and correction had to be made. 
The great creeds of Christendom were written when men 
greatly believed. They “spring out of the perennial vigor 
of faith, out of the capacity of faith to unfold from 
within its own depths a wealth of treasures of wisdom and 
knowledge, to build up a kingdom of acknowledged 
truths, by which it illumines itself as well as the surround¬ 
ing world. A mind starved by doubt has never been able 
to produce a dogmatic system. ’ ’ (Martensen’s “ Christian 
Dogmatics,” pp. 3, 4.) That is to say, theology springs 
out of experience, and a great experience finds expression 
in a great confession of faith. 

In this connection it will be worth while to recall the 
wise words spoken by Bishop Alpheus W. Wilson during 
the session of the General Conference in the city of Bir¬ 
mingham, in 1906: 

These Articles of Faith are the normal outcome of our spiritual 
experience. The Church did not formulate Articles of Faith first, 
and then proceed to shape its Christian experience upon the ground 
and after the model of those Articles of Faith. It was a very simple 
faith in the beginning. They believed in Jesus Christ our Lord; 
and, as the inevitable outcome of that, they began to broaden in 
their views of him and put him in his true place in relation to 
thought and life and everything; and by and by these found expres¬ 
sion in the terms of faith as we have them in the manifold creeds, 
and we cannot get rid of them, and never will until we get rid of 
that which is fundamental and lies below the whole of our spiritual 
experience. The Rock on which we build is not a creed and not a 
literal statement of any fact, or anything except Jesus Christ and 
him crucified. The Rock on which we build is the revelation of 
Jesus Christ, who is in us by the Spirit of the Living God. And the 
Church (and Wesleyanism has revived it in the Church perhaps 
more than any other ecclesiastical system) has built upon that 
from the beginning. Now I am perfectly satisfied with the Articles 
of Faith as we have them. I think they will satisfy the faith of 
the world for many generations to come. 


Fundamental Belief 


35 


With this statement I fully agree. These Articles will 
stand, of course not as a finality, for nothing human is final, 
but until some great crisis comes with some new and deeper 
experience of Divine grace and some new insight into the 
meaning of God’s Word. Meantime, loyal Methodists 
will continue to teach and preach in harmony with this 
Protestant and Wesleyan statement of the things which 
are believed and experienced among us. 

This discussion would be incomplete if I did not call 
attention to an important and necessary distinction 
pointed out by Dr. Abel Stevens between obligatory and 
indicatory standards of doctrine. When Wesley completed 
the organization of his societies in England and provided 
for their permanent existence, he did not change their 
terms of membership as recorded in the “General Rules.” 
He never inserted a dogmatic requirement; and in his 
last years more than ever boasted of the liberality of his 
system. However, he did require that his preachers 
should preach no other doctrine than is contained in his 
Notes on the New Testament and the Standard Sermons. 
But for members of his societies these doctrinal standards 
were indicatory and not obligatory . “They could see in 
the theological standards of Methodism what doctrines 
they would be likely to hear from its pulpits. They could 
judge thereby whether its societies would be suitable 
sanctuaries for them and their families. They found, 
however, but one condition required for admission into 
its communion—that defined in its “General Rules.” 

It is a noteworthy fact that, in providing for the organization 
of American Methodism, Wesley did not change the “General Rules” 
as the basis of membership, though he prepared for it “Articles of 
Religion.” This interesting historical fact is full of significance, as 
an example of that distinction between indicatory and obligatory 
standards of theological belief which Methodism has, perhaps, had 
the honor of first exemplifying among the leading Churches of the 
modern Christian world. The “ Articles of Religion’ ’ and the “ Gen¬ 
eral Rules” are both parts of the constitutional law of American 


36 


Fundamentalas of Methodism 


Methodism; but the ‘‘General Rules” still prescribe the “only 
condition” of membership and mention not the “ Articles’ * or any 
other dogmatic symbols. Conformity to the doctrines of the 
Church is required as a functional qualification of the ministry, 
but Church members cannot be excluded for personal opinions 
while their lives conform to the practical discipline of the Church; 
they can be tried for “sowing dissensions in the societies by inveigh¬ 
ing against their doctrines and discipline”; that is, in other words, 
not for their opinions, but for their moral conduct respecting their 
opinions. (Stevens’s “History of Methodism,” Vol. II, p. 448.) 

We have seen, however, that all who come to our altars 
for baptism are required to give assent to the ancient 
baptismal confession known as the Apostles’ Creed. If 
it be asked, How is this consistent with Wesley’s “one 
condition previously required”—namely, “a desire to flee 
from the wrath to come and to be saved from their sins”— 
a desire which when firmly fixed in the heart will show 
itself in a willingness to conform to the “General Rules” 
of the Church? the answer is plain: The Apostles* Creed 
is not in any sense a theological statement. It is rather a 
setting forth in the briefest possible form of the historic 
facts upon which the Christian Church is founded. As a 
matter of course, our “one condition” presupposes the 
existence of Christianity and belief in the foundation 
facts upon which rests the edifice of the Christian religion. 
Methodism lays down no theological requirement for 
Church membership and allows large liberty of thinking. 
But belief in the essential facts of Christianity is, of course, 
necessary to the being of the Church of Jesus Christ. 

This, then, is the sum of the things which I have written. 
The one creed which Methodism requires of those who 
seek the fellowship of our communion is that ancient 
creed known as the Apostles’ Creed, the creed of Christen¬ 
dom. It matters not what else a man may believe or may 
not believe, if he heartily accepts the brief statements 
set forth in this ancient symbol, then he may become a 
Methodist. Besides this, in the Twenty-Five Articles of 


Fundametal Belief 37 

Religion, we have an important historical document 
connecting Methodism directly with the Protestant 
Reformation; and this Protestant document is a standard 
of doctrine for all our teachers and preachers. In harmony 
with the Protestant interpretation of Christianity, we 
must preach and teach. 

It should be a matter of considerable satisfaction that 
Methodism rests upon this Apostolic and Protestant and 
Wesleyan foundation. Here we stand secure. This foun¬ 
dation is broad enough for all who love our Lord Jesus 
Christ in sincerity, and strong enough to resist all such 
as seek to destroy it or to substitute for it another founda¬ 
tion not laid either by the apostles, the Reformers, or our 
Methodist fathers. 

It is to be hoped that the reading of this exposition 
will lead more than a few to a better understanding of 
Methodism and to join with the writer in saying: 

Faith of our fathers! we will love 
Both friend and foe in all our strife: 

And preach thee, too, as love knows how, 

By kindly words and virtuous life: 

Faith of our fathers! holy faith! 

We will be true to thee till death. 


FUNDAMENTAL PRACTICE 

The General Rules of the United Societies 



II 

FUNDAMENTAL PRACTICE 

“ There is only one condition previously required of those 
who desire admission into these societies , a 1 desire to flee 
from the wrath to come , and to he saved from their sins.' " 

Thus wrote Wesley upon the organization of the United 
Societies which afterwards developed into the Methodist 
Church. However, he immediately went on to say that 
“wherever this is really fixed in the soul, it will be shown 
by its fruits.” It was, therefore, expected of all who 
continued in fellowship with the Methodists that they 
should continue to evidence their desire for salvation by 
living in conformity with the General Rules—Rules, it 
will be seen, which speak only of the Christian life and the 
means of maintaining and perfecting that life. These 
Rules are the recognized terms of Church membership 
throughout Methodism . As Dr. Abel Stevens says: “ They 
are remarkable as not containing a single dogmatic con¬ 
dition of communion .” 

It is important that we should hear John Wesley him¬ 
self on this point. In his Journal, under date of May 18, 
1788, he writes as follows: 

There is no religious society under heaven which requires noth¬ 
ing of men in order to their admission into it but a desire to save 
their souls. Look all round you; you cannot be admitted into the 
Church, or society of the Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Quakers, or 
any others, unless you hold the same opinions with them and adhere 
to the same mode of worship. The Methodists alone do not insist on 
your holding this or that opinion; but they think and let think. 
Neither do they impose any particular mode of worship; but you 
may continue to worship in your former manner, be it what it may. 
Now, I do not know any other religious society, either ancient or 
modern, wherein such liberty of conscience is now allowed, or has 
been allowed, since the age of the apostles. Here is our glorying, 
and a glorying peculiar to us. What society shares it with us? 

(40 


42 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


Again, under date of August 26, 1789, a year and six 
months before his death, he writes: 

I then met the society and explained at large the nature and rise 
of Methodism; and still aver, I have never read or heard of, either 
in ancient or modern history, any other Church 1 which builds on so 
broad a foundation as the Methodists do; which requires of its mem¬ 
bers no conformity either in opinions or modes of worship, but 
barely this one thing, to fear God and work righteousness. 

Unfortunately in recent years a false note has been 
sounded in Methodism , a note which calls attention to things 
to be believed rather than a life in Christ to be lived. 
There have arisen among us some who insist that 
a correct creed is of more importance than a good 
life. They seem to take the position that if one’s 
creed is correct, one’s life will necessarily be right¬ 
eous. There is immense peril in this position. For the 
next step may lead one to conclude that his own life is a 
Christian life, because, forsooth, his creed is in perfect 
harmony with orthodox standards. Then the further 
step may be taken which leads the poor, misguided man 
to the conclusion that his brother is a bad man for the 
good and sufficient reason that his brother does not agree 
with him in all his theological tenets. 

We Methodists, on the contrary, hold no such view. 
We believe that a “pure heart” is of even greater impor¬ 
tance than a “clear head.” For as Jesus said: “Blessed 
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” We be¬ 
lieve that a correct creed is important, but we hold firmly 
to the view that a Christlike life is the final test of one’s 
religion. Indeed, this is the final test of all religion, the 
kind of man that it produces. And this is the final test 
of the value of any creed. Does it make one narrow and 
unbrotherly and critical? Does it take the milk of kind¬ 
ness out of the human breast? Does it fill one with the 


Observe that Wesley here uses the word “Church." 



Fundamental Practice 


43 


spirit of the inquisitor and the persecutor? Or does it 
make one broad and brotherly and charitable? Does it 
fill one with tender sympathy for all who have stumbled 
in the path or gone out of the way? Does it give one the 
mind that was in Christ, who came to seek and to save 
that which was lost and whose gracious words to the peni¬ 
tent were, “Go and sin no more”? I repeat, the ultimate 
test of creed and of religion is the kind of life that they 
produce. 

Throughout his long life John Wesley continually in¬ 
sisted that the chief thing God had raised up the Method¬ 
ists to do was “to spread scriptural holiness over these 
lands.” When speaking of this, Wesley sometimes used 

I find more profit in sermons on either good tempers or good works 
than what are vulgarly called “gospel sermons." That word has 
now become a mere cant word. I wish none of our society would 
use it. It has no determinate meaning. Let but a pert, self-suf¬ 
ficient animal that has neither sense nor grace bawl out something 
about Christ or his blood or justification by faith and his hearers 
cry out, “What a fine gospel sermon." 

It is quite evident that Wesley had little patience with 
preaching that did not insist on a pure heart and love to 
God and man. And it is a most unfortunate thing that 
nowadays we hear all too little of the fundamental Meth¬ 
odist teaching that Christianity’s chief purpose is to make 
good men and good women. 

Let it be said, then, that the General Rules are as truly 
one of the fundamentals of Methodism as the Apostles * 
Creed and the Twenty-Five Articles of Religion . For Meth¬ 
odist “discipline” is as much a part of Methodism as is 
Methodist “doctrine.” These General Rules were drawn 
up by Wesley himself for the guidance of those earnest 
Christians who looked to him as their pastor and teacher. 
And I capitally doubt if a more perfect and complete 


44 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


outline of Christian conduct was ever drawn by the hand 
of an uninspired man. As a matter of fact, these General 
Rules are not so much “rules” as “principles.’* That 
is to say, they do not attempt to regulate the details of 
one’s life, but rather to furnish, and that largely in the 
very language of the New Testament, great principles 
by which one should direct his conduct as a Christian. 
And attention should be drawn to the fact that they are 
not many. Indeed, strictly speaking, there are only three 
General Rules. 

According to these Rules all who desire to continue 
in fellowship with the Methodists must evidence their 
desire for salvation: 

“ First, by doing no harm , by avoiding evil of every kind , 
especially that which is most generally practiced; 

11 Secondly, by doing good , by being in every kind merciful 
after their power , as they have opportunity , doi?ig good of 
every possible sort , and , as far as possible , to all men; 

“ Thirdly , by attending upon all the ordinances of God.” 

It will be seen at once that under the first “Rule” we 
have presented the negative aspect of the Christian life , 
things that a Christian ought not to do; under the second 
“Rule” we have the positive aspect of the Christian life , 
things that a Christian ought to do to help others and to 
make the world better; while under the third “Rule” 
we have outlined the “means of grace,” which a Christian 
should use in his own spiritual self-culture , that he may 
grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ. 

I 

Consider , then, the Methodist Rule touching the negative 
aspect of the Christian life. A Methodist must do no harm , 
he must avoid evil of every kind. 

Methodism was the revival of the best things in Puri¬ 
tanism. It is easy enough to make sport of the Puritans, 


(Fundamental Practice 


45 


and it is the fashion nowadays to do so. But our English 
and American civilization is under everlasting obligation 
to them. In all our history no other movement plowed 
so deep a furrow and sowed so fruitful a harvest of right¬ 
eousness as did Puritanism. Consider some things that 
came to us through Puritanism. Our faith in an over¬ 
ruling Providence and our belief in the value of the in¬ 
dividual to God came through the Puritans. Our rever¬ 
ence for Holy Scripture, our regard for the Christian 
Sabbath, our hatred of sins of the flesh, and our attitude 
toward such amusements as “ cannot be used in the name 
of the Lord Jesus”—all these came to us through the 
influence of the Puritans. Wesley himself was born in a 
Puritan home and trained by a Puritan mother. And 
the best things in Puritanism came to Wesley through his 
wise mother. As another has said: “The loss of Puritanism 
is one of the dangers of the present to Methodism.” A 
better rule could not be laid down at the present time 
than that which Susannah Wesley wrote for the guidance 
of her son: 

Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasure? 
Take this rule: Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tender¬ 
ness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off 
the relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the authori¬ 
ty of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however 
innocent it may be in itself. 

Under this first Rule there follow certain special appli¬ 
cations of the principle involved. One or two of these 
have no great interest for us at the present time, as the 
evils referred to are not very generally practiced among 
us; for instance, the one forbidding “the buying or selling 
of goods that have not paid the duty. ’’ There is one which 
warns against “the putting on of gold and costly apparel,” 
which was very much called for in Wesley’s day when, as 
another has said, the grand controversy was who could 
outeat, outdrink, and outdress his neighbor. And there 


46 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


can be no doubt that, in this present day of fashion and 
extravagance, our people do need to be warned that one 
cannot spend hundreds of dollars on dress and thousands 
of dollars on gold and diamonds and pearls and then ex¬ 
pect to be accounted a member of the kingdom of God. 

There is yet another to which I feel constrained to make 
some more definite reference. I refer to that which warns 
against “taking such diversions as cannot be used in the 
name of the Lord Jesus.” Nothing could be finer than that. 
If one is really in earnest about the Christian life, that will 
settle for him practically every question touching “world¬ 
ly amusements.” For it is not possible to make out a 
list, long or short, of amusements that are permissible 
and amusements that are not permissible. Concerning 
many things, it cannot be said that they are either right 
or wrong in themselves; whether they are right or wrong 
will depend entirely upon the spirit in which one enters 
into them. If they cannot be done “in the name of the 
Lord Jesus,” that settles it. St. Paul’s high principle of 
Christian liberty brings us exactly to the same point: 
“All things are lawful to me; but not all things are ex¬ 
pedient. All things are lawful to me; but I will not be 
brought under the power of any.” “All things are lawful; 
but not all things edify. Let no man seek his own, but 
each his neighbor’s good.” 

Whosoever else may compromise with the world, 
Methodists must not compromise. When Methodism 
compromises, she loses her quality and character and 
ceases to bear that testimony to “holiness unto the Lord” 
for the sake of which God raised her up and sent her 
forth into the world. For Methodism to compromise 
is for Methodism to die. To repeat words quoted above: 
“ The loss of Puritanism is one of the dangers of the present 
to Methodism .” 

And yet I must remind my brethren that these Meth¬ 
odist General Rules were never intended to be a rod to 


Fundamental Practice 


47 


beat the sheep with. Rather they are a staff with which 
to guide them. For it should not be forgotten but should 
always be remembered that “discipline” means “teach¬ 
ing,” or “training;” and the use of “discipline” is for 
salvation and not for destruction. Its purpose is to hold 
up a lofty standard of Christian living before our people 
while the kind and sympathetic pastor guides his flock 
into paths of righteousness. 

II 

And consider what Wesley has to say about the positive 
aspect of the Christian life. A Methodist is expected to do 
good in every possible way , and as far as possible to all men. 

The Methodist way of life is something more than a 
negative renouncing of the world. Historians have drawn 
out a very interesting parallel between John Wesley and 
St. Francis of Assisi. The parallel is more superficial 
than real. St. Francis is the supreme and classic example 
of asceticism, with many tender and beautiful and human 
qualities which survive in spite of his asceticism. John 
Wesley, to a remarkable extent, left his asceticism be¬ 
hind, a discarded garment, when he put on the garments 
of the new life in Christ. Christianity knows nothing of 
self-denial for its own sake; and Methodism, when it is 
true to its spirit and genius, emphasizes self-denial only 
as the denial of the lower for the sake of the higher and 
the sacrifice of self in the service of mankind. A merely 
negative life is a very poor and beggarly life. It is, further, 
a very perilous life to live. The peril of the empty house 
is that the former inhabitant may return with other evil 
spirits like himself, “and the last state of that man be- 
cometh worse than the first.” 

The Methodist way of life, then, is far more than 
negative, it is very positive. We are exhorted and expected 
to “do good of every possible sort, and, as far as possible, 
to all men,” “to their bodies by giving food to the hungry, 


48 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


by clothing the naked, by visiting or helping them that 
are sick or in prison;” “to their souls by instructing, 
reproving, exhorting all we have intercourse with. 
We are to do good “especially to them that are of the 
household of faith or earnestly desiring so to be,” thus 
endeavoring to make of the Church a genuine Christian 
brotherhood. 

It will be seen immediately that according to Wesley’s 
understanding the gospel of Jesus Christ is not some¬ 
thing purely individualistic; rather it is essentially social. 
The soul of man, it should always be remembered, is 
the one thing that has absolute value, the only thing 
that, considered in itself, has infinite worth. Everything 
else is of worth only as it relates to the soul. But man is 
a part of the society he lives in. He is rooted in his 
environment, and his environment becomes a part of 
himself. If man is to be fully saved, then the society in 
which he lives must be saved also. The New Testament 
recognizes this. Christ has a gospel for society as well 
as for the individual. As Canon Freemantle pointed 
out so ably in his Bampton Lectures, the world itself is 
the subject of redemption. Christ lived and taught and 
died not for the individual only, but that all society, 
all human life with all its varied institutions, might come 
under the redemptive power of his gospel. The preacher 
or teacher who discards and decries the orthodox empha¬ 
sis on the social aspect of the gospel is simply throwing 
away half of his gospel to the hurt of the kingdom of God. 

By a true Christian instinct, Wesley and the first 
Methodists saw that if men and women and little children 
were to be fully .saved, they should be put in the best 
circumstances possible. All this is clearly seen in the 
kind of work which was carried on in the first Methodist 
church built in London. “The Foundry,” so called be¬ 
cause it was a church building made out of an old, aban¬ 
doned foundry, was in almost every respect what one 


Fundamental Practice 


49 


would call a modern Institutional Church. It was a Meth¬ 
odist preaching place. And it was much more than that— 
it was the center of all Methodist activities in London. 
Connected with it were Christian and social activities 
of various kinds. Here was a book room for the sale of 
Wesley’s publications; here was a savings bank and loan 
office for the help of the worthy poor; here was a free 
medical dispensary, the first established in London; here 
was a school for poor children; here was a home for the 
poor and helpless; and here was a Christian home where 
numbers of Christian workers resided and from which 
the sanctified spirit of Susannah Wesley went to God. 
The Foundry incarnated the soul of Methodism , and Meth¬ 
odism to-day would do well to hark hack to the spirit of her 
great founder . 

The attitude of Methodism toward philanthropy is 
thus described in “The Confessions of J. Lackington’’: 

Mr. Wesley’s people think that they cannot love their neighbor 
as themselves without endeavoring to find out every possible way 
by which they may be serviceable to the souls and bodies of their 
fellow creatures. In London and Bristol, and, I believe, in other 
places, some of their society who are able to pray, instruct, and ex¬ 
hort, endeavor to find out poor, distressed objects who are confined 
to their beds by diseases in poorhouses, prisons, lodging houses, 
dirty alleys, lanes, etc. These poor, forsaken outcasts of society 
they instruct, exhort, pray with, etc. To objects most in want 
they give money. Perhaps there cannot be any labor of love more 
praiseworthy or more deserving of encouragement, as great numbers 
of such poor, destitute wretches may at times be found languishing 
in a forlorn state, and generally die without any one caring any¬ 
thing about them; for none but such as are filled with the love of 
God and man will ever go into such loathsome places and habi¬ 
tations. I formerly accompanied some of these lovkig people in 
this work of mercy and have witnessed their cheerful performance 
of this great duty, which to a poor, selfish, unregenerate heart would 
be intolerable. But no labor, however disagreeable or hazardous 
to health or life, is too much to be performed by such as are thor¬ 
oughly impressed with the worth of an immortal soul; who are 
persuaded that Christ tasted death for every man and would that every 
4 


50 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


man should come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved. While 
they were employed in this solemn work, if they could discover any 
poor creature that gave them reason to hope for his conversion, O, 
what love and joy warmed every heart! 

And the work which these Methodists did in England 
was of such a sort that it brought about a tremendous 
social reform. Concerning this, Green, the historian of the 
English people, writes as follows: 

But the Methodists themselves were the least result of the 
Methodist revival. In the nation at large appeared a new moral 
enthusiasm which, rigid and pedantic as it often seemed, was still 
healthy in its social tone, and whose power was seen in the disappear¬ 
ance of the profligacy which had disgraced the upper classes and the 
foulness which had infested literature ever since the Restoration. 
A yet nobler result of the religious revival was the steady attempt, 
which has never ceased from that day to this, to remedy the guilt, 
the ignorance, the social degradation of the profligate and poor. 
It was not until the Wesleyan impulse had done its work that this 
philanthropic impulse began. 

When the Methodists of America met for their great 
organizing conference, in the city of Baltimore, at Christ¬ 
mas time, in 1784, they asked themselves a very definite 
question, and they gave a very definite answer. This 
was the question: “What may we reasonably believe to 
be God’s design in raising up the preachers called Meth¬ 
odists?” And the following was their clear-cut answer: 
“ To reform the continent and to spread scriptural holiness 
over these lands ” Methodism in America, then, conscious¬ 
ly and deliberately entered upon a twofold mission: 
to reform the continent and to spread scriptural holiness 
over these lands. The work of “reform” helps to make 
scriptural holiness possible; and “scriptural holiness” 
always brings about reform. Both to the social aspect 
and to the individualistic aspect of the gospel, Methodism 
is committed by its essential character and by its history, 
as well as by the call of God. 

The credentials which Jesus presented to John the 


Fundamental Practice 


51 


Baptist when, distressed with doubts, he sent from his 
prison to ask, “Art thou he that cometh, or look we for 
another?” these same credentials does the true Church 
of Christ offer to the world to-day: “Go tell the things 
which ye have seen and heard: the blind receive their 
sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf 
hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have glad ti¬ 
dings preached to them.” 

To the carrying out of Christ’s program in the world, 
both in reference to individual men and women and also 
as it has to do with the regeneration of human society, 
we Methodists are solemnly dedicated. Charles Wesley’s 
great hymn, which has been called “The Marseillaise 
of Methodism,” has in view both aspects of Christian 
service: 

A charge to keep I have, 

A God to glorify, 

A never-dying soul to save, 

And fit it for the sky. 

To serve the present age, 

My calling to fulfill, 

O, may it all my powers engage, 

To do my Master’s will. 

But something else remains to be said, and it needs to 
be said very clearly and emphatically; for to err at this 
point, is to make a fatal error. The prime object of all 
Christian philanthropy is the salvation of the soul. It is 
the perpetual danger of all who are interested in reform 
that they may lose their interest in individual sufferers 
and sinners, and that if interested in them as individuals, 
they come to think more about their bodies than about 
their souls. With profound insight Isaac Taylor notes 
that one of the elements of Methodism in the eighteenth 
century was “evangelic philanthropy.” “Evangelic 
philanthropy,” that is a fine phrase and comes at once 
to the heart of the matter. “The benevolent affections,” 


52 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


thus he writes, “when kindled and enhanced by Christian 
motives, take a wide range and prompt Christian men to 
engage in those enterprises of mercy which have respect 
more to the religious and moral necessities of their fellows 
than to their bodily destitution. Those noble charities 
of these times which are carrying the gospel out through 
the pagan wilderness, these have their rise in motives 
that are wholly approvable to the Christian law, ‘Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’; for where we lodge 
Christianity, with its healing influence and its purifying 
institutions, in the heart of a pagan country, we do that 
which embraces the purposes of all works of mercy, 
spiritual and temporal.” 

All of which is to say that Christian philanthropy is 
primarily evangelical; it is first of all interested in the 
gospel, the good tidings of redeeming grace to lost men, 
the salvation of man’s immortal soul. 

Ill 

The third General Rule gives advice touching spiritual 
self-culture. 

This Rule, with its suggestive outline, is as follows: 

“It is expected of all who desire to continue in these 
societies that they should continue to evidence their 
desire of salvation, 

Thirdly, By attending upon all the ordinances of God: 
such are, 

“The public worship of God; 

“The ministry of the word, either read or expounded; 

“The Supper of the Lord; 

“Family and private prayer; 

“Searching the Scriptures; and 

“Fasting or abstinence.” 

The phrase which I have used, “spiritual self-culture,” 
may be objected to. Dr. R. W. Dale, for instance, says 


Fundamental Practice 


53 


that “self-culture, the great law of natural ethics, is 
unknown in the supernatural life.” But immediately he 
goes on to explain what he means: 

Christian holiness is nothing else than a revelation of the inex¬ 
haustible holiness of Christ. . . . The Christian man does not 
simply develop and perfect his own life; he is constantly receiving 
and appropriating the life and power of the Son of God. . . . Hence 
the possibilities of the Christian life are not to be measured by our 
native resources, but by the infinite perfection of Christ himself. 
We dwell in him; he dwells in us; and he is the living prophecy of 
the height and glory of our holiness, a prophecy never to be ful¬ 
filled on earth or in heaven, but perpetually moving toward ful¬ 
fillment through struggle and sorrow and frequent defeat in this 
world and through endless ages of joy and triumph in the world to 
come. 

With these words of the great English theologian we 
are in heartiest agreement. And in the light of the great 
truth which they set forth, we call attention to Wesley’s 
insistence upon the importance of making use of the 
“means of grace.” 

Note briefly the things mentioned under this third 
General Rule: 

1. 11 The public worship of God." The soul perishes in 
solitude. Society is necessary if Christian faith is to 
grow. In public worship we come together with common 
sins and sorrows and frailties and hopes and fears and 
aspirations, and we find our needs supplied. Thus we are 
knit in a closer bond of brotherhood and our Christian 
faith grows stronger, while God is glorified. 

2. “ The Ministry of the Word , either read or expounded." 
The Word of God, the Holy Bible, has the first place in 
our Protestant worship. The Bible stands on every 
Protestant pulpit, and the pulpit stands directly before 
the people. Our people suffer when the reading of the 
Bible from the pulpit is neglected. Few things would 
help so much as a return to a wise and understanding 
“expounding of the Word.” 


54 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


3. “ The Supper of the Lord.” This is Christ’s holy 
institution in remembrance of his own death and passion. 
It perpetually proclaims the fact that his death is the 
central thing in the gospel. And here still, in the breaking 
of bread, does the Living Christ make himself known to 
his followers. 

4. “Family and private prayer .” The family is the 
social unit in Christianity. The home is the Church in 
miniature. The writer of these pages may be pardoned 
for saying that of all the memories of his childhood none 
is more sacred, for none made a holier impression on him 
or had more lasting influence, than those which cluster 
around the “family altar.” O, that the Methodists of 
this generation would rebuild the altars that have fallen 
down! And private prayer is necessary if one is to main¬ 
tain the Christian life. Nothing tells more immediately 
on Christian character than the neglect of private prayer. 
A visitor to City Road Chapel, London, goes immediately 
to Wesley’s house. There he is directed to Wesley’s 
“Prayer Room.” Opening out of Wesley’s bedroom is 
a little chamber which is a sacred spot indeed. This was 
Wesley’s closet where he shut himself in with God. Meth¬ 
odism was made by such prayers as were offered in this 
little room. Here the visitor bows his head and prays 
that he also may know the way to the Source of all power. 

5. “ Searching the Scriptures .” What a book this Bible 
is! How God does speak through its pages to the soul 
of man! To the neglect of this book may be traced the 
fact that so many people are being led astray, blown 
about by every wind of doctrine. I plead for the study of 
the Bible, of the Bible itself rather than of books about 
the Bible. 

6. “ Fasting or abstinence .” Those first Methodists were 
in earnest. Indeed, Methodism has been described as 
being “Christianity in earnest.” And no one will deny 
that nowadays we need less feasting and more fasting, 


Fundamental Practice 55 

less self-indulgence and more self-sacrifice. So shall we 
draw nigh to God and so will God draw nigh to us. 

Some one has said that one of the gravest dangers the 
Church confronts to-day is the danger of “practical 
efficiency and spiritual shallowness.” And I fear that 
the saying is true. We have developed a wonderful 
machine. The things that any well-trained and efficient 
business man can do, we have all learned to do fairly well. 
But where are those who can do what “ practical efficiency” 
can never accomplish? We have been so busy with 
“much serving,” that we have not taken time to “sit at 
Jesus’s feet.” And we are the poorer, and the whole 
Church suffers. A young man visiting a distant city 
for the first time was much impressed when, in passing 
a great electrical plant, he read this sign: “Power to Let.” 
Here was a great power house from which wires ran in all 
directions sending power out to the surrounding country. 
There is a great central Power House for the human soul. 
Here power is to let. Here the soul comes in touch with 
God. “Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost 
is come upon you.” And by use of the means of grace, 
as suggested in our General Rules, one will put one’s 
self in touch with that Power without which all our ef¬ 
forts will accomplish little and our own souls grow yet 
more poverty-stricken even while we try in vain to ac¬ 
complish the great task of saving the world. 

Here, then, in the General Rules, we have one of the 
most important fundamentals of Methodism. What a 
pity it would be if Methodists, having received such an 
inheritance from that man “sent from God whose name 
was John”—John Wesley—should now join in with those 
who sound a false note in Methodism, the emphasis on a 
creed to be signed rather than on a life in Christ to be 
lived. 

Let Methodists learn again what Methodism is and 
come back to those great ethical and spiritual principles 


56 Fundamentals of Methodism 

which have made Methodism the mightiest spiritual force 
in America! 

How important Methodism believes these General 
Rules to be is evident when one turns to the Book of 
Discipline. Our fathers saw to it that the General Rules 
were protected by the constitution of the Church. They 
cannot be “revoked or changed” by a majority vote of 
the General Conference, but only by regular constitutional 
process. And this is as it should be. For this great 
historic document, from the hand of John Wesley, should 
for all times stand in the Book of Discipline just as we have 
it now. Furthermore, the importance, from a Methodist 
viewpoint, of this outline of Christian duty is seen from 
the fact that under the “duties of the preacher in charge of a 
circuit, station, or mission,” this is given among the things 
required: “To see that in every congregation the General 
Rules are read at least once a year.” And the law of the 
Church does not let it rest at that, but requires the pre¬ 
siding elder at each third Quarterly Conference to ask 
the question: “Have the General Rules been read?” 

In conclusion, I express the opinion that few things 
would be of greater service to our people than for every 
Methodist preacher who reads this to go into his pulpit 
at an early date with Discipline in hand, and, in the spirit 
of Christ, give to his congregation an explanation and 
exposition of the General Rules. For Methodist dis¬ 
cipline is as truly a part of Methodism as is Methodist 
doctrine. 


Ill 

FUNDAMENTAL EXPERIENCE 

And the Complement of Doctrines Which Came Out 

of That Experience 




Ill 

FUNDAMENTAL EXPERIENCE 

I purpose writing in the present chapter about that 
gracious experience of personal salvation out of which 
Methodism originally sprang and to which Methodism 
bears witness the world over. I am doing this because of 
the joy I have in bearing testimony to my own faith and 
in order to draw the thought of my brethren back to the 
viewpoint of Wesley and the early Methodists. For the 
most essential thing in Methodism is a personal experience 
of salvation. To preach the great doctrines of personal 
experience and to bear glad testimony to salvation from 
sin—it was for this that God raised up the Methodists. 

Let no one suppose that we Methodists are indifferent to 
matters touching fundamental orthodoxy. Throughout 
all our history the trumpet we have sounded has given 
forth no uncertain sound. However, our Methodist way 
of approaching the whole matter of orthodoxy has from 
the very beginning been quite different from that usually 
followed. The unusual method of those who “contend 
for the faith” has been to write down intellectual propo¬ 
sitions, to draw up long articles of belief, and by threat of 
excommunication insist that they must be accepted. 
This method of intellectualism Methodism has never 
followed. The historic position of Methodism is not that 
you make men Christians by first making them orthodox, 
but that if you can succeed in getting people converted 
and can lead them on to deeper experiences of divine grace, 
you will keep them sound in the faith. 

And the things I am saying to the Church are said be¬ 
cause I am interested in keeping Methodism true to her 
early experience and her apostolic testimony. I do not 
believe that this can be done by dogmatism and denun- 

,( 59 ) 


60 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


ciation. I know that it can be done by calling sinners to 
repentance, by living a Christian life, and by exhorting 
our people to go on to perfection. 

This is the position of the fathers and founders of our 
great Church. Take a quotation from Dr. Abel Stevens: 

Methodism reversed the usual policy of religious sects which 
seek to preserve their spiritual life by their orthodoxy. It main¬ 
tained its orthodoxy by its spiritual life, and it presents to the 
theological world the anomalous spectacle of a v^despread Church 
which for more than a hundred years has had no serious disturb¬ 
ance from heresy. Wesley seems to have perceived that unnecessary 
discriminative theological requirements of opinions are the most 
effectual means of provoking heterodoxy into existence by challeng¬ 
ing the doubts or curiosity of speculative minds, that the continual 
scenting out of heresy by the Church is the surest means of pro¬ 
ducing it, as the persecution of doubtful opinions has usually 
strengthened and spread them. (“History of Methodism," Vol. 
II, page 445.) 

Take also a quotation from our own Bishop Holland N. 
McTyeire: 

The concrete doctrine, as embodied and illustrated in experience, 
is of at least equal practical importance with the abstract doctrine, as 
stated in books. Methodism puts emphasis on experience. St. 
Paul more than once told how he was converted. The subjective 
aspects of Christianity, as presented in his Epistles, are as striking 
as the objective. Experimental religion is not a cant phrase; it 
expresses a real and a great fact. It has been well said: Methodism 
reversed the usual policy of religious sects, which seek to sustain 
their religious life by their orthodoxy; it has sustained its orthodoxy 
by devoting its chief care to its spiritual life, and for more than a 
century had no serious outbreaks of heresy, notwithstanding the 
masses of untrained minds gathered within its pale and the general 
lack of preparatory education among its clergy. No other modern 
religious body presents a parallel to it in this respect. (“History of 
Methodism,” page 123.) 

Let us recall, then, that epoch-making experience out of 
which came Methodism. Many circumstances had led up 
to that hour in Wesley’s experience. The influences of the 


61 


Fundamental Experience 

parsonage at Epworth, the life spent at Oxford, the 
humbling and chastening effect of his experience in 
Georgia—all these brought him to that culminating 
hour. In language which has become classic in Methodist 
circles Wesley describes what haopened at the prayer 
meeting in Aldersgate Street: 

About a quarter before nine, while one was describing the change 
which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my 
heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, 
for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken 
away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and 
death. I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a 
more especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I 
then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart. 

John Wesley was not alone in this experience. White- 
field had entered into a conscious experience of divine 
grace. Charles Wesley had also found the peace and joy 
which come from personal trust in Christ. Presently 
numbers of others had found the ‘‘pearl of great price.” 
And in a little while there came from God the greatest 
revival of evangelical religion the world had ever seen. 
Out of this came Methodism and the Methodist Church. 

Methodism, then, is emphatically the religion of Chris¬ 
tian experience. As everybody knows, among the doc¬ 
trinal standards of Methodism are reckoned Wesley’s 
“Notes on the New Testament” and Wesley’s “Standard 
Sermons,” these all written to explain and expound the 
doctrines of Christian experience. What, then, are the 
doctrines of Christian experience which from the first 
have been considered of central importance in Methodism? 
They are the following: 1. The Universality of the 
Atonement, 2. Salvation through Faith in Jesus Christ, 
3. The Witness of the Spirit, and 4. The Possibility of 
Christian Perfection. 

Consider briefly these cardinal doctrines of Methodism, 
these gracious truths of Christian experience: 


62 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


I. The Universality of the Atonement. 

From his college days Wesley had believed in the univer¬ 
sality of the atonement. He held to the faith which he had 
received from his wise mother that “the doctrine of pre¬ 
destination as maintained by the rigid Calvinists is very 
shocking and ought to be abhorred because it directly 
charges the most high God with being the author of sin.” 
But in the glowing experience of Wesley and those as¬ 
sociated with him this truth that Christ died for all men 
took fire. It became something more than a doctrine 
handed down from the fathers and held by the intellect 
as a truth made necessary by the character of God. It 
became a fact of experience. They themselves had been 
redeemed. The worst men that they knew were being 
saved by the power of Christ. None were so lost but 
Christ could find them and bring them back to the Fa¬ 
ther’s house. And so, to quote Green: “Their voice was 
soon heard in the wildest and most barbarous corners of 
the land, among the bleak moors of Northumberland, in 
the dens of London, or in the long galleries where in the 
pauses of his labors the Cornish miner listens to the 
sobbing of the sea.” 

And it was not long before revival fires were kindled 
on this side of the Atlantic. What Wesley and his asso¬ 
ciates did in England Francis Asbury and his coadjutors 
did here in the wilds of America. And they did even 
more, for their hardships were incomparably greater. 
Among all those early heroes, Jesse Lee, of Virginia, 
stands out as easily one of the first. It was he who carried 
the gospel of Methodism into Calvinistic New England. 
They would not let him preach his Methodist “heresy” 
of the love of God to all mankind in their churches. So, 
like Wesley before him, he took to the open fields. When 
he came to Boston, he found a table, and, placing it under 
an elm tree, he began to sing: 


Fundamental Experience 


63 


Come, sinners, to the gospel feast; 

Let every soul be Jesus’ guest; 

Ye need not one be left behind, 

For God hath bidden all mankind. 

Sent by my Lord, on you I call; 

The invitation is to all: 

Come, all the world! come, sinner, thou! 

All things in Christ are ready now. 

This is the gospel which did more than any other one 
thing to lay the foundations of Christian civilization in 
this New World. It is a blessed gospel we preach, and a 
glorious inheritance of faith and heroic service is ours. 
But what does it all amount to if we do not do our utmost 
and our best to follow in the steps of our fathers and give 
the gospel to the lost men and women of our cities, our 
towns, and our rural districts? The compulsion of a great 
message is upon us. We must be missionary or we are not 
Methodists. 

God pity us if, sent as we are upon a great mission, we 
fall out among ourselves by the way and take to disputing 
about things which are not essential to the gospel and have 
no relation to the great facts of Christian experience and 
life! 

II. Salvation through Faith in Jesus Christ . 

All his life long, until he felt his heart “strangely 
warmed,” Wesley had been on the wrong track. He had 
tried almost everything—sacramentarianism, asceticism, 
reliance on good works—and all in vain. His experience 
in Aldersgate Street changed all that. Then and there he 
discovered for himself what it was to trust in Christ, Christ 
alone, for salvation. And this is how Wesley describes the 
faith that saves: 

It is not an opinion, or any number of opinions put together, 
be they ever so true. A string of opinions is no more Christian 
faith than a string of beads is Christian holiness. The faith by 


64 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


which the promise is attained is a power wrought by the Almighty 
in an immortal spirit inhabiting a house of clay to see through that 
veil into the world of spirits into things invisible and eternal. . . . 
It is the ear of the soul whereby the sinner hears the voice of the 
Son of God and lives, the palate of the soul (if the expression may 
be allowed) whereby the believer “tastes the good word of God 
and the powers of the world to come," the. feeling of the soul whereby 
“through the power of the Highest overshadowing him" he per¬ 
ceives the presence of Him in whom he lives and moves and has his 
being and feels the love of God shed abroad in his heart. It is the 
internal evidence of Christianity, a perpetual revelation, equally 
strong, equally new, through all the centuries which have elapsed 
since the incarnation and passing now, even as it has done from the 
beginning, directly from God into the believing soul. 

Concerning this description of faith, Coleridge is quoted 
as saying: “I venture to avow it as my conviction that 
either Christian faith is what Wesley here describes or 
there is no proper meaning in the word.” 

Let us rejoice that there are many of us who know from 
personal experience that “a string of opinions is no more 
Christian faith than a string of beads is Christian holiness.” 
We have found out for ourselves that saving faith is an 
intensely personal affair. It is a relation between souls, 
between my soul and the living Christ. It is like forming 
a new friendship. It is like falling in love. We have 
formed a new friendship with him who is the sinner’s 
Friend. We have fallen in love with him who loved us 
and gave himself up for us. The trust we have in him is 
like the trust a child has in his father. 

My exhortation to all Methodists who have entered into 
the experience described above is this: Do not let the 
clamor of confused and confusing voices make you timid 
or afraid. If you have come in touch with reality, if you 
have learned to distinguish the things that differ, the 
essential from the nonessential, then tell it out to all the 
world. Speak out the things which you have found out 
for yourself. Dare to be a witness to the reality and power 


fundamental Experience 


65 


^ ‘that Jiving faith which never mistakes the husk for the 
'kernel and which never confuses the changing form with 
-the abiding reality. 


III. The Witness of the Spirit. 

V. v % t * 9 ■ f 

' Possibly more than any other Christian denomination 
. has Methodism preached this doctrine. God has enabled 
; Methodism through all these years to testify with St. 
^Paul: “‘The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit 
that we are the children of God.” Methodists around the 
world unite in singing: 


My God is reconciled; 

His pardoning voice I hear; 

He o\vns me for his 
I can no lender fear : 

4 * | 

With confidence I now dralv nigh 
And, "Father., Abba, Father,” cry. 


What gave special form and expression to this doctrine 
was the deistic philosophy which was prevalent in the 
eighteenth century and the personal experience of Wesley 
and the people ealled Methodists in reaction against that 
iform of skepticism. 

iDeism was the doctrine of an absentee God. It taught 
.that God had once done something, but that he could not 
do anything any more. He had once created the world 
and ordained certain laws. Then he had left the world to 
the running of these laws just as a watchmaker, to use the 
favorite illustration of the eighteenth century, might 
make a watch and wind it up to run of itself. God was not 
present in history; there could be no such thing as personal 
providence over human lives; there could not possibly he 
any such thing as revelation, since God could not speak to 
men; God could not come in touch with the human soui; 
men could not possibly have present arid personal knowl- 
5 ~ 


66 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


edge of God. God had given men the light of human 
reason. By this light they could discover that God exists, 
that he had ordained certain laws of morality, and that 
the soul is immortal. That was enough; man needed no 
more. Such, in brief, was the philosophy of the eighteenth 
century. And it was everywhere triumphant; practically 
all preachers and teachers had come under the influence of 
it. It weighed heavily upon them like the pressure of the 
atmosphere. They could not escape from it. And I may 
add that this is the philosophy of many people to-day. 
Indeed, in some of its forms it still passes itself off as 
orthodox theology. Religion in Wesley’s century was, 
therefore, a cold and dead affair. It had neither life nor 
enthusiasm in it. 

On the intellectual side Bishop Butler did a work with¬ 
out parallel when he wrote his “Analogy.” It is a mistake 
to underestimate the influence of that notable book on the 
religious and philosophical thought of the century. But 
it is simple truth to say that it was not Butler’s “Analogy” 
and the writings of other thinkers that destroyed deism. 
It was the Methodist revival that did the work. It was 
not reason that overturned that philosophical system; it 
was experience. Deism was silent in the face of the facts 
of Christian experience. The answer of Methodism to the 
doubts and denials of the deists was just this: God is not 
absent, but present. Here he is now moving mightily in 
the hearts and lives of men and working powerfully in 
human society. God does speak to men, for God has 
spoken to us. “The Spirit himself beareth witness with 
our spirit, that we are the children of God.” Methodism 
was a movement that came from God; it was a gracious 
dispensation of Divine Providence; it was an invasion out 
of the other world. When one reads Wesley’s Journal, 
one finds himself in the atmosphere of the New Testament. 
The supernatural was revealed in the hearts of men and 
before their very eyes. 

.x 


Fundamental Experience 


67 


IV. The Possibility of Christian Perfection} 

We will let John Wesley say exactly what Methodism 
means by this doctrine. He writes: “I mean loving God 
with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves. I pin 
all its opposers to this definition. No evasion. No 
shifting the question.” A short while before he died 
Wesley said: “This doctrine of full salvation is the grand 
depositum which God has lodged with the people called 
Methodists, and for the sake of propagating this chiefly 
he appears to have raised them up.” 

Now, as everybody knows, this doctrine has been the 
cause of much difference of opinion among Methodists. 
In recent years it came near creating a schism in the 
Church. In consequence one seldom hears “entire sancti¬ 
fication” mentioned from our pulpits nowadays. It is 
my own opinion that the time has now come when, with 
the heat of controversy behind us, in the light of New 
Teatament teaching, and with the assistance of a more 
adequate psychology than our fathers had, we are pre¬ 
pared to restate our great teaching concerning the pos¬ 
sibility of Christian perfection and to proclaim it every¬ 
where. 

That the New Testament teaches a doctrine of perfect 
love is as clear as anything can be. That the early Meth¬ 
odists taught such a doctrine and that through their 
preaching many men and women were lifted from the 
lowlands to the sunlit plains is also as certain as anything 
can be. It is believed that in the light of modern psy¬ 
chology the doctrine of Christian perfection can find a 
restatement which will commend it to all thoughtful and 
aspiring souls. Our present-day psychologists have much 
to say about “the divided self” and “the unified per- 


1 For further study, see “A Plain Account of Christian Perfection,” 
by John Wesley; and that Methodist classic, “The Tongue of Fire,” 
by William Arthur, saint and scholar. 



68 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


f 


sonality.” Now, the end of all religion and of all Christian 
education, so far as personal salvation is concerned, is to 
enable one to say: “This one thing I do; this one thing I 
am.” This process of unification begins in regeneration. 
Perfect love completes it. What our modern psychologists 
mean by “the unification of the personality,” exactly 
that Wesley meant by Christian perfection y and exactly 
this the New Testament means also. Here, then, is a 
consummation to be sought after. Here is an attainment 
to be reached this side of death. For so far as the teach¬ 
ings of the New Testament guide us and so far as experi¬ 
ence leads us there is no reason why, as a result of full 
consecration and perfect faith, one may not attain it in 
one supreme and glorious moment. 

It is interesting to know that Wesley did not himself 
profess it. To one who had objected to the doctrine, Mr. 
Wesley wrote: “I tell you flat, I have not attained the 
character I draw.” The nearest he is known to have come 
to professing it was when to the question whether he had 
ever experienced the blessing of perfect love he replied by 
quoting Charles Wesley’s hymn: 

Jesus, confirm my heart’s desire, 

To work, and speak, and think, for thee; 

Still let me guard the holy fire, 

And still stir up thy N gift in me; 

Ready for all thy perfect will, 

My acts of faith and love repeat, 

Till death thy endless mercies sefal, 

And make the sacrifice complete. 

If the present writer be asked, “What have you to say 
concerning your own experience?” I reply: “Not as though 
I had already attained, . . . but this one thing I do, 

forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching 
forth unto those things which are before, I press toward 
the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ 


Fundamental Experience 


69 


1 


Jesus.’* And I will add this also: In the providence of 
God he broke me in pieces like a potters vessel and made 
“ another vessel as seemed good to the potter to make it.” 
Temptations which once were fierce are fierce no longer. 
Certain battles which once occupied a great part of the 
field of life have now passed to a large degree out of sight, 
having rolled on down beneath the horizon where some¬ 
times I hear the distant sound of artillery and the retreat¬ 
ing steps of a defeated foe. There have come to me a 
deeper appreciation of the things that really matter and a 
large indifference to things, whether of creed or of practice, 
that make no difference to the Christian life. A deep and 
abiding sense of certainty touching the things of the 
spirit has brought me a peace which once I did not have. 
I am ashamed beyond measure that my Christian ex¬ 
perience is still so poor and my attainments in divine grace 
so small. But I am able to make Andrew Rykman’s 
prayer my own: 

Other lips may well be bold; 

Like the publican of old, 

I can only urge the plea: 

“Lord, be merciful to me.” 

• •••••• 

If I may not, sin-defiled, 

Claim my birthright as a child, 

Suffer it that I to thee 
As an hired servant be; 

Let the lowliest task be mine, 

Grateful, sp the work be thine; 

Let me find the humblest place 
In the shadow of thy grace: 

Blest to me were any spot 
Where temptation whispers not. 

If there be some weaker one, 

Give me strength to help him on; 

If a blinder soul there be, 

Let me guide him nearer thee. 

Make my mortal dreams come true 
With the work I fain would do; 


70 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


Clothe with life the weak intent; 

Let me be the thing I meant; 

Let me find in thy employ 
Peace that dearer is than joy; 

Out of self to love be led 
And to heaven acclimated, 

Until all things sweet and good 
Seem my natural habitude. 

CONCLUSION. 

The most fundamental thing about Methodism, then, 
is a gracious experience of personal salvation. Nothing 
would mean more to our Church just now, and I think also 
to the kingdom of God, than a fresh study of our own 
doctrines and a fresh quickening of our own Christian 
experience. Let our beloved Methodism come back to 
the experience and practice of the fathers. Well does Dr. 
Stevens say in connection with the great passage already 
quoted from his “History of Methodism,” “In this re¬ 
spect”—in respect to Methodism’s insistence on ex¬ 
perience and a holy life rather than on “theological re¬ 
quirements”—“Methodism may have a special mission 
in the religious world and for the ages to come.” 

And this, I am sure, is the call of God to Methodism at 
this very hour. My own belief is that Methodism has 
come to the kingdom for such a time as this. And I 
express the grave fear that if this present unfortunate 
agitation concerning orthodoxy and heresy continues, in 
which laymen often try to settle theological questions that 
have puzzled scholars for centuries and preachers think to 
silence the scientists while themselves knowing nothing 
about the matters they discuss and scientists who know 
little about the Bible and nothing about philosophy join in 
and add confusion to disorder—I say I am greatly afraid 
that if something is not done to stop this agitation multi¬ 
tudes will be driven into the camp of the extreme “lib¬ 
erals,” and some may be driven into actual infidelity. 


71 


Fundamental Experience 

And I am sure that if we Methodists will learn from our 
own standards and our own Methodist historians just 
what Methodism is and will stand true to original Meth¬ 
odism the present hour offers the greatest opportunity 
that ever came to us in our entire history. In this respect 
Methodism has a special mission in the religious world 
to-day and for the ages to come. 

My final exhortation is this: Preach and teach the great 
affirmations of the faith. Sound out always a positive 
note. Do not try so much to defend the gospel. Pro¬ 
claim it. Proclaim the gospel, and the Holy Spirit will 
defend it. This was St. Paul’s method: “By the mani¬ 
festation of the truth commending ourselves to every 
man’s conscience in the sight of God.” When the truth 
is proclaimed, it takes hold of the conscience of every sort 
of man. 

The Methodist gospel of Christian experience is the gospel 
of Jesus Christ , and it is ample for all men , large enough to 
meet the needs of all who sin and suffer and wander and die. 



IV 

ADDENDA 

Apostles’ Creed, Articles of Religion, and the 

General Rules 



IV 

ADDENDA 

The Apostles’ Creed 1 
I believe 

I. 1. In God the Father Almighty, 

Maker of heaven and earth; and 

II. 2. In Jesus Christ 

His only Son our Lord, 

Who 

3. Was conceived by the Holy Ghost, 

Born of the Virgin Mary, 

4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, 

5. Was crucified, dead, and buried, 

He descended into hell; 2 

6. The third day he rose again from the dead, 

7. He ascended into heaven, and 

sitteth on the right hand of God the Father 
Almighty; 

8. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and 

the dead. 

I believe 

III. 9. In the Holy Ghost; 

10. The holy catholic Church; 

The communion of saints; 

11. The forgiveness of sins; 

12. The resurrection of the body, and 

the life everlasting. Amen. 

H'he arrangement given here is taken from “The Historic Faith," 
by Westcott. It presents immediately to the eye the several articles 
in this great creed. 

2 This article was omitted by the American Methodists in 1786. 

( 75 ) 



76 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


Articles of Religion 
/. Of Faith in the Holy Trinity. 

There is but one living and true God, everlasting, 
without body or parts; of infinite power, wisdom, and good¬ 
ness; the Maker and Preserver of all things, both visible 
and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead, there are 
three persons of one substance, power, and eternity: the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 

II. Of the Word , or Son of God , who was made very Man . 

The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and 
eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man’s 
nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two 
whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and 
manhood, were joined together in one person, never to 
be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very 
man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, 
to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only 
for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men. 

III. Of the Resurrection of Christ. 

Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took 
again his body, with all things appertaining to the per¬ 
fection of man’s nature, wherewith he ascended into 
heaven, and there sitteth until he return to judge all men 
at the last day. 

IV. Of the Holy Ghost . 

The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the 
Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory, with the 
Father and the Son, very and eternal God. 

V. Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation. 

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to sal¬ 
vation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may 
be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that 
it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought 


Addenda 


77 


requisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of the 
Holy Scripture, we do understand those canonical books 
of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was 
never any doubt in the Church. 

Of the Names of the Canonical Books. —Genesis, Exodus, 
Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 
The First Book of Samuel, The Second Book of Samuel, 
The First Book of Kings, The Second Book of Kings, 
The First Book of Chronicles, The Second Book of Chron¬ 
icles, The Book of Ezra, The Book of Nehemiah, The 
Book of Esther, The Book of Job, The Psalms, The 
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher, Cantica, or Songs 
of Solomon, Four Prophets the greater, Twelve Prophets 
the less. 

All the Books of the New Testament, as they are 
commonly received, we do receive and account canonical. 

VI. Of the Old Testament. 

The Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for 
both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is 
offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator 
between God and man, being both God and man. Where¬ 
fore they are not to be heard, who feign that the old 
fathers did look only for transitory promises. Although 
the law given from God by Moses, as touching ceremonies 
and rites, doth not bind Christians, nor ought the civil 
precepts thereof of necessity to be received in any common¬ 
wealth; yet, notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is 
free from the obedience of the commandments which are 
called moral. 

VII. Of Original or Birth Sin. 

Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam 
(as the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the corruption 
of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered 
of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone 


78 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


from original righteousness, and of his own nature in¬ 
clined to evil, and that continually. 

VIII. Of Free Will. 

The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such, 
that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own 
natural strength and works to faith, and calling upon God; 
wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant 
and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by 
Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and 
working with us, when we have that good will. 

IX. Of the Justification of Man. 

We are accounted righteous before God, only for the 
merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and 
not for our own works or deservings; wherefore, that we 
are justified by faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine, 
and very full of comfort. 

X. Of Good Works. 

Although good works, which are the fruits of faith, and 
follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and 
endure the severity of God’s judgment; yet are they 
pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and spring out 
of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively 
faith may be as evidently known, as a tree discerned by 
its fruit. 

XI. Of Works of Supererogation. 

Voluntary works, besides, over and above God’s com¬ 
mandments, which they call works of supererogation, 
cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety. For 
by them men do declare, That they do not only render 
unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they 
do more for his sake than of bounden duty is required; 
whereas Christ saith plainly, When ye have done all that 
is commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants. 


Addenda 


79 


XII. Of Sin after Justification. 

Not every sin, willingly committed after justification, 
is the sin against the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable. 
Wherefore the grant of repentance is not to be denied to 
such as fall into sin after justification: after we have re¬ 
ceived the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given, 
and fall into sin, and by the grace of God rise again, and 
amend our lives. And therefore they are to be condemned 
who say they can no more sin as long as they live here, 
or deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent. 

XIII. Of the Church. 

The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faith¬ 
ful men, in the which the pure word of God is preached, 
and the sacraments duly administered according to 
Christ’s ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are 
requisite to the same. 

XIV. Of Purgatory. 

The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardons, 
worshipping, and adoration, as well of images as of relics, 
and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing vainly in¬ 
vented, and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but 
repugnant to the word of God. 

XV. Of speaking in the Congregation in such a Tongue as 

the People understand. 

It is a thing plainly repugnant to the word of God, and 
the custom of the Primitive Chuich, to have public 
prayer in the Church, or to minister the sacraments in a 
tongue not understood by the people. 

XVI. Of the Sacraments. 

Sacraments ordained of Christ, are not only badges 
or tokens of Christian men’s profession; but rather they 


.. 'H' - - 

80 fundamentals of Methodism 

K 

rare certain signs of grace, and God’s good will towards us, 
t by the which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not 
< only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our faith 
i in him. 

There two sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord 
in the'Cfespel; that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of 
t the-L&d. 

fPkose five commonly called sacraments; that is to say>, 
^Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and extreme 
^Unction, are not to be counted for Sacraments of the 
Gospel, being such as have partly grown out of the corrupt: 
following of the apostles, and partly are states of life 
allowed in the Scriptures, but yet have not the like nature 
of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, because they have 
not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God. 

The sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed 
upon, or to be carried about; but that we should duly use 
tthem. And -fa such only as worthily receive the same, 
-they have a'wholesome effect or operation; but they that 
^receive them unworthily, purchase to themselves con¬ 
demnation, as St. Paul saith. 

XVII . Of Baptism. 

Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of 
difference, whereby Christians are distinguished from 
others that are not baptized; but it is also a sign of re¬ 
generation, or the new birth. The baptism of young 
children is to be retained in the Church. 

XVIII. Of the Lord's Supper . 

The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love 
that Christians ought to have among themselves one to 
another, but rather is a sacrament of our redemption 
by Christ’s death: insomuch, that to such as rightly, wor¬ 
thily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which 


Addenda 81 

we break is a partaking of the body of Christ; and likewise 
the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ. 

Transubstantiation, or the change of the substance of 
bread and wine in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved 
by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of 
Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and 
hath given occasion to many superstitions. 

The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the 
Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. 
And the mean whereby the body of Christ is received 
and eaten in the Supper, is faith. 

The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not by Christ’s 
ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped. 

XIX. Of both Kinds, 

The cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the lay- 
people; for both the parts of the Lord’s Supper, by Christ’s 
ordinance and commandment, ought to be administered 
to all Christians alike. 

XX. Of the One Oblation of Christ , finished upon the Cross . 

The offering of Christ once made, is that perfect re¬ 
demption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins 
of the whole world, both original and actual; and there 
is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone. Where¬ 
fore, the sacrifice of masses, in the which it is commonly 
said that the priest doth offer Christ for the quick and the 
dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, is a blasphemous 
fable, and dangerous deceit. 

XXI. Of the Marriage of Ministers. 

The ministers of Christ are not commanded by God’s 
law either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain 
from marriage; therefore it is lawful for them, as for all 
other Christians, to marry at their own discretion, as they 
shall judge the same to serve best to godliness. 

6 


82 


Fundamentals of Methodism 


XXII. Of the Rites and Ceremonies of Churches. 

It is not necessary that rites and ceremonies should in 
all places be the same, or exactly alike; for they have been 
always different, and may be changed according to the 
diversity of countries, times, and men’s manners, so that 
nothing be ordained against God’s word. Whosoever, 
through his private judgment, willingly and purposely 
doth openly break the rites and ceremonies of the Church 
to which he belongs, which are not repugnant to the word 
of God, and are ordained and approved by common 
authority, ought to be rebuked openly, that others may 
fear to do the like, as one that offendeth against the com¬ 
mon order of the Church, and woundeth the consciences 
of weak brethren. 

Every particular Church may ordain, change, or abolish 
rites and ceremonies, so that all things may be done to 
edification. 

XXIII. Of the Rulers of the United States of America. 

The president, the congress, the general assemblies, 
the governors, and the councils of state, as the delegates 
of the people , are the rulers of the United States of America, 
according to the division of power made to them by the 
constitution of the United States, and by the constitutions 
of their respective states. And the said states are a 
sovereign and independent nation, and ought not to be 
subject to any foreign jurisdiction. 3 


3 The Twenty-Third Article of Religion in the Disciplines of all our 
Churches in foreign lands shall read: 

“XXIII. Of the Duty af Christians to the Civil Authority. 

“It is the duty of all Christians, and especially of all Christian min¬ 
isters, to observe and obey the laws and commands of the governing 
or supreme authority of the country of which they are citizens or 
subjects, or in which they reside, and to use all laudable means to 
encourage and enjoin obedience to the powers that be,” 



Addenda 


86 


XXIV. Of Christian Men's Goods. 

The riches and goods of Christians are not common as 
touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as 
some do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every man 
ought, of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give 
alms to the poor according to his ability. 

XX V. Of a Christian Man's Oath. 

As we confess that vain and rash swearing is forbidden 
Christian men by our Lord Jesus Christ and James his 
apostle; so we judge that the Christian religion doth not 
prohibit, but that a man may swear when the magistrate 
requireth, in a cause of faith and charity, so it be done 
according to the prophet’s teaching, in justice, judgment, 
and truth. 

The General Rules. 

There is only one condition previously required of those 
who desire admission into these societies, a “desire to 
flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their 
sins.” But wherever this is really fixed in the soul, it 
will be shown by its fruits. 

It is therefore expected of all who continue therein 
that they should continue to evidence their desire of 
salvation, 

First, By doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind, 
especially that which is most generally practiced: such as, 

The taking of the name of God in vain; 

The profaning the day of the Lord, either by doing 
ordinary work therein, or by buying or selling; 

Drunkenness, or drinking spirituous liquors unless in 
cases of necessity; 

Fighting , quarreling, brawling; brother going to law 
with brother; returning evil for evil, or railing for railing; 
the using many words in buying or selling; 


84 Fundamentals of Methodism 

The buying or selling goods that have not paid the duty; 

The giving or taking things on usury , i. e., unlawful 
interest; 

Uncharitable or unprofitable conversation, particularly 
speaking evil of magistrates or ministers; 

Doing to others as we would not they should do unto us; 

Doing what we know is not for the glory of God: as, 

The putting on of gold and costly apparel; 

The taking such diversions as cannot be used in the name 
of the Lord Jesus; 

The singing those songs , or reading those books t which 
do not tend to the knowledge or love of God; 

Softness or needless self-indulgence; 

Laying up treasures upon earth; 

Borrowing without a probability of paying, or taking 
up goods without a probability of paying for them. 

It is expected of all who continue in these societies that 
they should continue to evidence their desire of salvation, 

Secondly, By doing good, by being in every kind 
merciful after their power, as they have opportunity, 
doing good of every possible sort, and, as far as possible, 
to all men: 

To their bodies, of the ability which God giveth, by 
giving food to the hungry, by clothing the naked, by 
visiting or helping them that are sick or in prison; 

To their souls, by instructing, reproving, or exhorting 
all we have any intercourse with; trampling under foot 
that enthusiastic doctrine that “we are not to do good 
unless our hearts be free to it.” 

By doing good, especially to them that are of the house¬ 
hold of faith, or groaning so to be; employing them pref¬ 
erably to others, buying one of another, helping each 
other in business; and so much the more because the world 
will love its own, and them only. 

By all possible diligence and frugality , that the gospel be 
not blamed. 


Addenda 


85 


By running with patience the race which is set before 
them, denying themselves , and taking up their cross daily; 
submitting to bear the reproach of Christ, to be as the 
filth and offscouring of the world; and looking that men 
should say all manner of evil of them falsely for the Lord's 
sake. 

It is expected of all who desire to continue in these 
societies that they should continue to evidence their 
desire of salvation, 

Thirdly, By attending upon all the ordinances of God: 
such are, 

The public worship of God; 

The ministry of the word, either read or expounded; 

The Supper of the Lord; 

Family and private prayer; 

Searching the Scriptures; and 

Fasting or abstinence. 

These are the General Rules of our societies; all of which 
we are taught of God to observe, even in his written word, 
which is the only rule, and the sufficient rule, both of our 
faith and practice. And all these we know his Spirit 
writes on truly awakened hearts. If there be any among 
us who observe them not, who habitually break any of 
them, let it be known unto them who watch over that 
soul, as they who must give an account. We will admonish 
him of the error of his ways; we will bear with him for a 
season; but if then he repent not, he hath no more place 
among us; we have delivered our own souls. 























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